Much of Crete remains under a state of emergency after the storm. In four days, the island got as much rain as Athens sees in a whole year, says Kostas Lagouvardos, research director at the National Observatory of Athens. Mylopotamos was hit hardest.
This report follows our earlier story on the heavy rain that hit Crete, killing one person and prompting officials to declare a state of emergency in part of the island.
Lagouvardos visited the affected areas. The ground there is soaked through, which has caused widespread landslides and made streams overflow. Bridges have collapsed, roads are wrecked, and areas with sheep pens and barns can't be reached.
The water has swept away tons of soil and buried land under rocks, turning the sea around the island brown. Lagouvardos says farming and livestock on Crete have been wiped out completely.
The villages of Zoniana, Livadia and Axos took the worst of it. In many areas, rain fell non-stop for four to five days, and Lagouvardos says that's what made this storm so extreme — how long it lasted.
He called it one of the most extreme weather events of the past few decades and said it's the strongest storm to hit the island in 20 years. It beats the numbers from February 2019, when Crete's Chania and Rethymno areas saw rain unmatched anywhere else in Greece — the observatory's station at the entrance to the Samaria Gorge recorded 820mm.
Lagouvardos says this storm won't reach the levels of Storm Daniel in 2023, still the worst storm in Greece's history, but it comes close. Daniel is the only storm to have topped the 2019 figures.
Lagouvardos is calling for repairs to start right away, including quick, even temporary fixes to protect people, with winter on the way. Winter has come early this year, he says, and the wrecked roads and bridges will make the coming months hard.
Forecasts point to better weather in the coming days. Lagouvardos doesn't rule out more storms like this in October and November, traditionally the wettest months.
Updated (05.10, 18:38): Video added from ΕΡΤ Α.Ε..
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