In Greece, Village Appears when Lake Dries Up

A sunken Greek village has begun to reappear after water levels dropped in the lake that covered it. Extreme hot, dry weather is blamed for the disappearing Lake Mornos.

The village of Kallio was flooded in 1980 to create the lake. The plan aimed to help supply the ever-increasing water demands of the national capital about 200 kilometers away. Now, long stretches of dried soil mixed with old bricks surround the ruins of the Kallio.

"Day by day, the water goes down," said Dimitris Giannopoulos, mayor of central Greece's Dorida area. Reuters news agency reports Lake Mornos supplies water to nearly half of Greece's population.

Last winter brought little snow to Greece. This summer brought heatwaves but little rain to the country. Last winter was Greece's warmest on record.

Greece's dry climate makes it especially susceptible to the effects of a warming planet. The conditions worsened summer wildfires including some that reached outer areas of Athens last month. Scientists say extreme weather is now driving the dropping lake level.

"It is an alarm bell," said Efthymis Lekkas, a professor of disaster management at the University of Athens. "We don't know what will happen in the coming period. If we have a rainless winter, things will get difficult."

Giannopoulos noted that the Mount Giona mountain that rises up from the lake used to be snow-covered. But it saw none last winter. Around the lake, some trees have taken on a yellowish color. "They lack water. This has never happened before," Giannopoulos said.

Wells in the area are now drying up, he added. And surrounding villages – which do not take water from the lake – suffered water cuts this summer. A local firefighter chief said the risk of wildfires increases as the forests become drier.

Satellite images suggest the lake's surface area shrank from around 16.8 square kilometers in August 2022 to just 12 this year.

In addition, water supplies at three other water bodies dropped to 700 million cubic meters in August. This water supplies Attica, an area of around 4 million people that includes Athens. That was down from 1.2 billion cubic meters in 2022, the country's environment ministry said.

The Greek government says the state-run Athens water company had begun supplying those areas with additional sources of water. Former residents of Kallio were surprised to see the village again. But some said they were saddened by its current state.

"I used to see it full and say it was a beach. Now all you see is dryness," said 90-year-old Konstantinos Gerodimos.

His 77-year-old wife Maria added: "If it continues like this, the entire village will appear, all the way to the bottom, where the church and our home was."

I'm Bryan Lynn.

Reuters reported this story. Bryan Lynn adapted the report for VOA Learning English.

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susceptible – adj. easily influenced or harmed by something

alarm – n. a loud noise or a public announcement that warns of danger

bell – n. a hollow, metal object, shaped like a cup, with a piece of metal inside that makes a ringing sound

entire – n. whole