A 27-year-old man missing in floods since Saturday night, was found and rescued on Monday morning. It was locals who heard somebody shouting for help from afar and informed the Fire Service. Three people are still missing, one dead as Medicane Zorbas battered Greece.
The young man was missing for 36 hours and many Greeks consider it “a miracle” that he was found alive, given the fact that torrential rains were hitting the area until Monday morning.
The Fire Service launched an operation to locate the man and bring him to safety. Deployed was also a helicopter.
The young man was spotted on a river bed surrounded by rushing waters.
Rescue video by the Fire Service
Exhausted and in shock, the man reportedly collapsed in the arms of his rescuers around 10 o’ clock Monday morning.
The first thing he said was a question about his girl friend.
Together with his girl friend, the man was driving from Athens to his village in the mountains of North Evia on Saturday night while Medicane Zorbas was striking the area, pouring down tons of rainwater.
The car was swept away by the rushing waters between Mantoudi and Prokopi.
His 24-year-old friend somehow got our of the car, grabbed branches and climbed to a tree where she was found by rescue teams later.
She could not give any information about her friend’s destiny.
Collapsed road between Mantoudi and Prokopi
Already in the early morning hours of Sunday, rescuers from the Fire Service unit EMAK and divers kept searching for the man and an senior couple also missing since Saturday night.
The search operation continued until late on Sunday and resumed early Monday morning.
Speaking to the media after his rescue, the young man said that while the car was being swept away he grab a tree branch and managed to reach the river bed. He walked around and found a forest cabin where apples were stored and some dry clothes.
He stayed there for several hours because of the heavy rainfall.
When the rain stopped on Monday morning he came out and tried to find help.
“I was I was going to die in the river,” he said recalling the time he spent in the rushing waters before reaching the shore.
He suffered a couple of bruises.
He said the both, his girl friend and he came out of the car from the windows.
“I opened the windows when I saw the difficulties coming,”
Missing couple in Evia
There are no signs of the 67-year-old man and his 58-year-old wife on Monday morning.
However, the young man’s rescue revived hopes that the couple may be still alive somewhere and their rescue is possible now that the flood waters withdraw.
The young man has been transferred to the health center of Mantoudi. If needed, he will be taken to a hospital in Athens.
Missing Shepherd
A search and rescue operation continues in Almyros by Volos in Central Greece on Monday for a 75-year-old shepherd, also missing since Saturday evening.
Together with a co-worker, he had gone to a mountain height of 1,500 m to bring his free ranging cows to low lands.
There was heavy rainfall and fog in the area, the tow men went apart.
Media report that the shepherd called his cow-worker at some point and told him he was standing in front of a stream that he could not cross. There was no further contact with the man ever since.
Dead in his car
A retired policeman was found dead in his car in Vrahati, Corinth in Peloponnese on Sunday. The car was trapped in a flooded land road. The man died of a heart attack during the extreme weather phenomena, local media report.
When he was found the road was flooded and no ambulance would approach.
Medicane Zorbas moved further to North-East on Monday, but left disaster on his path since it stroke South-West Greece on Saturday morning.