Greece braces for more flooding

Greece braced for more flooding Wednesday after torrential rains and heavy snowfall were already blamed for four deaths, authorities said. The latest victim, a 40-year-old woman, was carried away in a flash flood on the southeastern Aegean island of Symi Tuesday, Ekathimerini.com reported. A state of emergency was declared for the Evros region in northern Greece after a dam burst in Biser in neighboring Bulgaria, killing eight people there, and causing the Evros River in northern Greece to burst its banks, forcing evacuations of the border village of Ormenio. That came after Bulgarian officials warned two additional dams near the Greek border had reached capacity. Authorities in Evros were racing to shore up embankments and dig trenches to divert water, Athens News Agency reported. Heavy rains also caused a landslide on the Patra-Corinth national highway in the Peloponnese Tuesday, forcing authorities to close part of the roadway and divert traffic at least until Saturday. A prosecutor in the Peloponnese began an investigation Tuesday in the Ileia prefecture, which has been heavily damaged, into the causes of flooding at the region's only hospital, in Pyrgos, forced to close for repairs. In central Greece, floodwaters from the Spercheios River washed away crops in Larissa, and some parts of Ioannina in northwest Greece were without water or electricity because of strong winds and rain.