Greece, tornado in the Chalkidiki peninsula: 6 dead tourists, over 30 injured

2021-05-15T13:49:55.141Z

Six foreign tourists died and at least 30 people were injured in the night between yesterday and today due to a tornado and violent hailstorms that hit the north of the Halkidiki peninsula in Greece. The local and international media report it. The tornado lasted about twenty minutes, according to witnesses interviewed by Greek public television ERT. A falling tree killed a Russian and his two-year-old son in a hotel in the seaside resort of Cassandra, 70 km from Thessaloniki. In a town near Propontida, a Czech couple died when their caravan was hit by violent gusts of wind and a Romanian woman and her baby were killed from the roof of a building torn up by the tornado. "It was an unprecedented phenomenon, with very strong winds and strong hail storms",said the head of the local civil protection explaining that "Halkidiki has been declared in a state of emergency". Over 140 firefighters are involved in the rescue operations.