OUTRAGE AGAINST THE government and transport operators grew in Greece today after a major snowstorm stranded thousands of motorists on the country’s most modern motorway, which remained blocked for a third day.
As Greek dailies headlined with a “fiasco” and the chief executive officer of the private company running the Attiki Odos ring road resigned, work crews struggled to free hundreds of immobilised vehicles abandoned by their drivers around the capital.
“A government buried in snow,” said leftist Efsyn daily, while even pro-government Eleftheros Typos daily spoke of “mistakes that brought chaos.”
The snow storm also knocked out power in over a dozen Athens neighbourhoods, with repairs still ongoing today as snow continued to impede access to some areas.
“We haven’t slept all night, our (fingers and toes) feel like they are about to fall off,” a woman in the southern Athens suburb of Alimos, who said she had no electricity for over a day, told Star TV.
On Tuesday, the army was brought in to help police, fire and state crews extricate some 3,500 stranded motorists.
The government said a compensation fee of €2,000 would be available to motorists, while another €1,000 is offered to train passengers stranded in a station north of Athens.
A homeless man died of heart failure on Tuesday in the northern city of Thessaloniki in an incident attributed to the cold.
The snow storm that hit the capital on Monday also disrupted flights out of Athens International Airport, with over 30 mainly domestic flights to be cancelled today.
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