Athens: Athens inched back to normal on Thursday after a snowstorm paralysed roads for days as recriminations raged over closures and outages that left up to 200,000 homes and businesses without power.
Shops and the capital’s main ring road reopened early Thursday after what officials described as a “super-human” effort to clear some 3,000 vehicles trapped in the snow since Monday. But state offices and schools remained closed, operating remotely, following a two-day public holiday called in Athens and other badly hit regions of Greece on Tuesday and Wednesday to keep people indoors.
Energy Minister Kostas Skrekas said fewer than 1,000 homes in the greater Athens area remained without power on Thursday, compared to 200,000 homes and businesses that experienced blackouts from Monday, when the snow first struck. Municipal crews were clearing snow and fallen tree branches from side streets in neighbourhoods of Athens, home to nearly four million people, on Thursday.
Greeks have expressed outrage and disbelief at authorities’ inability to clear roads and restore power earlier in more than a dozen Athens districts. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Wednesday offered a “personal and sincere apology” and said “lessons” would be drawn from the snowstorm, rare in Greek cities. On Tuesday, a homeless man died of heart failure attributed to sub-zero temperatures in the northern city of Thessaloniki.
On Thursday, residents in semi-rural suburbs east of Athens battled blackouts and supply shortages for a fourth straight day. “Do they want to find us frozen stiff? We have no heating, no food. Shame on them. If they had any decency, they should all resign,” a woman in the suburb of Peania told state TV ERT. On Tuesday, the chief executive officer of the private-run Attiki Odos ring road resigned, and the company has offered 2,000 euros in compensation for each stranded vehicle.
