عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Varieties

Flooded Homes, Streets as Another Storm Hits Battered Central Greece 

A view of a flooded street amid storm Elias in the city of Volos, Greece, September 28, 2023. (Reuters)
A view of a flooded street amid storm Elias in the city of Volos, Greece, September 28, 2023. (Reuters)
TT
TT

Flooded Homes, Streets as Another Storm Hits Battered Central Greece 

A view of a flooded street amid storm Elias in the city of Volos, Greece, September 28, 2023. (Reuters)
A view of a flooded street amid storm Elias in the city of Volos, Greece, September 28, 2023. (Reuters)

Torrential rain battered central Greece, flooding streets, homes and businesses in the city of Volos just three weeks after devastating Storm Daniel killed 16 people in the wider region.

More than 250 people have been evacuated from the area since Storm Elias struck on Wednesday afternoon, the fire brigade said on Thursday, adding that it had so far received 1,200 calls for help.

The storm hit Volos with rain so heavy that water levels in the city and its suburbs rose rapidly in a few hours. A nearby stream overflowed, adding to the flooding.

The mayor of Volos said that by Wednesday night, power outages caused by the storm and flooding had plunged 80% of the city into darkness. Authorities have stopped all vehicles from going onto the roads.

"People can't stand this anymore. I cannot understand nature's rage. Protect yourselves," said Mayor Achilleas Beos, urging people to stay home.

By Thursday morning, the storm had moved towards the island of Evia, a fire brigade official said. Some villages in northern Evia have been ordered to evacuate, state ERT TV said.

Storm Elias is the second major storm to hit the region since Daniel, the most intense storm to hit Greece since records began in 1930, battered the region for three days earlier in September.

Many Volos residents said the authorities were still dealing with the aftermath of Daniel and had not been adequately prepared for another storm.

"This was foretold," said Yannis Gavanoudis, a 70-year-old pensioner. "They (authorities) didn't do their job properly."

Daniel turned central Greece into an inland sea, flooding homes, damaging road infrastructure and farms near Volos, Karditsa and Larissa.

Tens of thousands of animals drowned and crops were washed away, and residents of the flooded areas are still struggling to recover from the impact.

Storm Daniel also wrought devastation across the Mediterranean, moving from Greece to Libya, where over 2,500 died in a huge flood in the city of Derna.

Most Viewed

 
 
Varieties

Ozempic Hailed as 'Fountain of Youth' that Slows Aging

The is available under the brand names Wegovy and Ozempic (Photo by Reuters)
The is available under the brand names Wegovy and Ozempic (Photo by Reuters)
TT
TT

Ozempic Hailed as 'Fountain of Youth' that Slows Aging

The is available under the brand names Wegovy and Ozempic (Photo by Reuters)
The is available under the brand names Wegovy and Ozempic (Photo by Reuters)

The anti-obesity drug Ozempic could slow down ageing and has “far-reaching benefits” beyond what was imagined, researchers have suggested.

Multiple studies have found semaglutide (available under the brand names Wegovy and Ozempic) reduced the risk of death in people who were obese or overweight and had cardiovascular disease without diabetes, The Independent reported.

Responding to research published in JACC, the flagship journal of the American College of Cardiology, Professor Harlan M Krumholz from the Yale School of Medicine, said: “Semaglutide, perhaps by improving cardiometabolic health, has far-reaching benefits beyond what we initially imagined.”

He added: “These ground-breaking medications are poised to revolutionise cardiovascular care and could dramatically enhance cardiovascular health.”

Multiple reports also quoted Professor Krumholz saying: “Is it a fountain of youth?”

He said: “I would say if you’re improving someone’s cardiometabolic health substantially, then you are putting them in a position to live longer and better.

“It’s not just avoiding heart attacks. These are health promoters. It wouldn’t surprise me that improving people’s health this way actually slows down the ageing process.”

The studies, presented at the European Society of Cardiology Conference 2024 in London, were produced from the Select trial which studied 17,604 people aged 45 or older who were overweight or obese and had established cardiovascular disease but not diabetes.

They received 2.4 mg of semaglutide or a placebo and were tracked for more than three years.

A total of 833 participants died during the study with 5 percent of the deaths were related to cardiovascular causes and 42 per cent from others.

Infection was the most common cause death beyond cardiovascular, but it occurred at a lower rate in the semaglutide group than the placebo group.

People using the weight-loss drug were just as likely to catch Covid-19, but they were less likely to die from it – 2.6 percent dying among those on semaglutide versus 3.1 per cent on the placebo.

Researchers found women experienced fewer major adverse cardiovascular events, but semaglutide “consistently reduced the risk” of adverse cardiovascular outcomes regardless of sex.

Dr Benjamin Scirica, lead author of one of the studies and a professor of cardiovascular medicine at Harvard Medical School, said: “The robust reduction in non-cardiovascular death, and particularly infections deaths, was surprising and perhaps only detectable because of the Covid-19-related surge in non-cardiovascular deaths.

“These findings reinforce that overweight and obesity increases the risk of death due to many etiologies, which can be modified with potent incretin-based therapies like semaglutide.”

Dr Jeremy Samuel Faust, an emergency medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, praised the researchers for adapting the study to look at Covid-19 when the pandemic started.

He said the findings that the weight-loss drug to reduce Covid-19 mortality rates were “akin to a vaccine against the indirect effects of a pathogen.”