The month-long state of emergency declaration, issued by Vassilis Papageorgiou, the secretary-general of the climate ministry in charge of civil protection, will provide funding and resources to speed up the clean-up of the harbour at Pagasetica Bay.Tons of dead fish have accumulated along the coast and in rivers there.
This is the second environmental catastrophe to hit the port of Volos, which is a 3 and a half hour drive north of Athens, following catastrophic flooding in the Thessaly region last year.
Those floods refilled a nearby lake that was drained in 1962 in an attempt to tackle malaria.
"After storms Daniel and Elias last autumn, around 20,000 hectares of the Thessalian plains were flooded and various freshwater fish were swept from the rivers to the sea," says Dimitris Klaudatos, professor of agriculture and environment at the University of Thessaly.
Since then, the lake's waters have receded dramatically, forcing freshwater fish to head for the port of Volos, which drains into Pagasetica Bay and the Aegean Sea, where they cannot survive.
On Tuesday (27 August) alone, authorities removed 57 tonnes of dead fish washed up on beaches near Volos.
Most of the thousands of dead fish that washed up in Pagasetica. Special nets have been placed at the mouth of the Xyria River to contain the large quantity of dead fish.
According to the local restaurant and bar association, the tourist flow in the area has already dropped by nearly 80% since last year's flood.
"This dead fish situation will be the death of us. What kind of visitor will come to our town after this," Stefanos Stefanou, president of the association, said earlier this week.
The environmental crisis has prompted an investigation by the prosecutor's office. | BGNES
