A city buried in mud

Mandra, a small town west of the Athens, Greece, got buried under tones of mud after a flash flood left hundreds homeless and at least 23 people dead, the biggest death toll the country has experienced from flooding since 1977. Early in the morning of November 15, 2017, heavy rain caused a near-by river to overflow and flood the entire town, breaking roads, lifting cars and burying houses under the mud. Illegal construction on the foothills of a mountain range, in addition to landfilled streams and wildfires that burned down the surrounding forrest, limited the natural passage of the water, forcing it to pass through the old national road and end up in the town. Flood prevention construction in the area has also been delayed regardless of experts warning that the poor infrastructure of Mandra was putting it in high risk of flooding. On the day of the natural disaster, residents found refuge on rooftops while the water rammed cars on walls and trees and flooded buildings. Others, did not have the time to escape the force of nature and drowned in their own houses, or got buried under tones of mud and floodwater. Overturned cars on balconies, waterlines on walls and mud-stained furniture in the middle of the streets, demonstrate the extend of the catastrophe which hit the town for the third time in recent years.