[WATCH] Greece: illegal construction played central role in flash floods that killed 20

Bad planning and illegal construction in Athens are said to have played a ‘central role’ in the deadly flash floods, which resulted in the deaths of 20 people last week, according to experts.

Around 1,000 home and business owners are eligible for the emergency assistance and funding, which authorities have pledged for those made homeless by the disaster.

“All buildings that have sustained damage will receive emergency funding of €5,000 [£4,400] while businesses in the same situation will receive €8,000,” government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos said on Monday.

Just five days after the flash floods turned the city’s roads into torrents of mud and debris, specialised rescue response teams continued to search for missing people.

The death toll rose on Sunday when disaster units discovered two bodies in a warehouse in Mandra, the western suburb where the damage was most widespread.

Two male drivers thought to have been trapped in their vehicles when the torrential rains hit have yet to be accounted for.

Most of the deaths were elderly people found in basement flats which were inundated by floodwater.

Poor infrastructure, including drainage systems, often makes Athens susceptible to flooding.

However, many believe the roads in the three suburbs of Mandra, Megara and Nea Peramos were in the state they were in due to human intervention.

Uncontrolled building on the outskirts of the Greek capital resulted in numerous streams being concreted over, leaving rivers with no natural outlet to the sea. According to experts, the lack of anti-flooding measures made the disaster even worse.

Geologists described the floods as a tragedy waiting to happen.

“The tragedy is that in 1996 we had two victims in the same area [of Mandra] precisely because the flow of water had been blocked,” said Dimitris Papanikolaou, emeritus professor of geology at Athens University.

He added that such were the dangers of flooding in Mandra.

“Nature had already warned that such intervention was disastrous, that not maintaining the natural flow of water was disastrous,” he said.

Aliki Mouriki, a prominent sociologist, said the floods had been very revealing because they had exposed all the “weaknesses and pathologies” of the modern Greek state.

“In the saddest possible way, they have not only highlighted the lack of urban planning but housing policies for the poor in working-class areas,” she said.

“When people’s pressing needs aren’t met, they resort to their own solutions – in this case illegal construction with no environmental considerations or respect for rules and regulations.”