Severe Drought in Greece Reveals Sunken Village Near Athens

The ruins of the colony of Kallio are resurfacing from the artificial Lake Mornos, a reservoir successful Greece, owed to record-breaking temperatures and an extended drought successful the region.

The colony was submerged successful the precocious 1970s erstwhile a dam was built to make a reservoir 124 miles (200 kilometers) westbound of Athens. Nearly 80 homes successful the town, arsenic good arsenic its religion and school, were abandoned to marque country for the reservoir. According to Reuters, the reservoir supplies h2o to astir fractional of the Greek population.

Last wintertime was Greece’s warmest connected record, and now, a period aft the hottest July connected record, the water level has dropped to the constituent that the colony has resurfaced.

“The level of Lake Mornos has dropped by 40 meters (131 feet),” Yorgos Iosifidis, a erstwhile nonmigratory of the town, told the AP. Kallio besides reappeared successful a drought successful the aboriginal 1990s, the AP reported. Surreal images of the lake, taken successful caller days, are a reminder of the fragility of Earth’s climate.

An aerial photograph of resurfaced buildings successful the Mornos artificial lake. Photo: Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP via Getty Images.

In shots of the lake, 1 tin spot the “bathtub ring” that shows the antecedently submerged onshore and waterline of the lake. The concern could worsen earlier it improves, arsenic adust conditions besides supply conditions for wildfires.

According to Greece’s situation ministry, h2o reserves successful Lake Mornos and 3 different reservoirs successful the portion person astir halved, from 1.2 cardinal cubic meters (42.4 cardinal cubic feet) successful 2022 down to 700 cardinal cubic meters (24.7 cardinal cubic feet) past month. And that’s not to notation that 2022 was Europe’s worst drought successful 500 years, according to a report by the Global Drought Observatory.

The Global Drought Observatory released a July report connected drought successful Europe that recovered ungraded moisture was down successful Greece and vegetation was stressed; the aforesaid conditions were reported successful different parts of cardinal Europe including Italy, Romania, the Balkans, and Türkiye. The Acropolis archaeological tract successful Athens was closed for hours successful July to forestall visitors’ vulnerability to precocious temperatures.

Severe droughts person besides deed stateside successful the past mates of years. In July, a dam nonaccomplishment successful New Mexico forced the metropolis of Albuquerque to rely connected groundwater, successful a reminder that today’s conveniences are often reliant connected aging infrastructure.

Of course, a starker reminder of the fragility of our satellite is the reappearance of an full village, enactment to the sword decades beforehand successful the sanction of h2o accessibility.