Lekkas on Valencia: “We cannot control such phenomena”

Professor of Natural Disasters Efthymis Lekkas in a television interview on Thursday morning (31/10) spoke about the deadly floods that hit Valencia and killed at least 155 people, stressing: “MWe cannot control such phenomena.”

At the same time, Lekas ​​was asked if the natural phenomenon that hit Valencia was the same as the cyclone “Daniel“

“It has the characteristics “Daniel”but this phenomenon is different. Daniel and Janus were phenomena that developed like river floods, that is, slowly. In Valencia we are dealing with the phenomenon of flash flooding, which was caused by the large amount of rainfall that fell on the ground: 480 mm were recorded in 6 hours. This was also facilitated by the hydrographic network, which very quickly diverted all these volumes to the sea.

When asked whether a similar phenomenon would occur in Attica, Lekkas replied: “There will be the same pictures as in Valencia. We cannot control such phenomena. At some point we will have to realize that extreme natural events are beyond our capabilities, beyond what we can do anything about them. Valencia had a system for warning and early diagnosis of floods, as well as measuring the height of water at each point, but the operational center was destroyed. We cannot cope with some phenomena. They're extremely extreme and we can't handle them.”

He also noted that “These floods are just one element of the climate crisis, as we are dealing with events that will occur more and more often, destroy larger areas and be of greater intensity. In essence, this situation constitutes a climate crisis. Here we are dealing with a typical case of an evolving climate crisis that will have the characteristics we have mentioned.”

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