The General Inspector of Public Adminstration has identified a series of crimes and omissions by state and local authorities that contributed decisively to the deadly November flooding in Mandra, Western Attica, but the report also noted the strong impact of extraordinarily extreme weather conditions.
Twenty-four local residents were killed in the flooding.
The inspectors found that torrential rains on Western Attica’s Pateras Mountain played a crucial role in the massive flooding, combined with the torrents from Soures and Agia Aikaterini.
But the report also stressed the role of public services, which delayed the completion of anti-flooding projects, and the role of the rubble-filled riverbed on which Mandra municipal authorities had illegally built a depot for city-owned vehicles.
The Egaleo forestry service was also largely blamed in the report, regarding carrying out a project to divert the waters from Agia Aikaterini.
The local forestry services are accused of “obsessions and fixations on formalities and not substance”, and are also blamed for “incorrect evaluation of the priorities and the emergency nature of the public tender for the Agia Aikaterini project, which was described as “extremely necessary for anti-flooding protection, as it would have seriously addressed the negative impact of a flood such as the one that occurred on 15 November.
The report also cites the role of large buildings that were built illegally and which blocked the flow of floodwaters.
It underlined that the Mandra municipal depot was constructed without any building permit.
