On September 17, Medicane Ianos, a rare hurricane-like storm in the Mediterranean, severely hit many places in Greece. One of those places was beautiful Kefalonia. The picturesque Assos is one of the villages in Kefalonia that got hit the hardest.
Unbelievably heartbreaking pictures from Assos have been emerging the past couple of days.
At the moment Assos has been left isolated by the disaster. The road leading to Assos is damaged and all roads have been covered with at least 2 metres of rumble, making access almost impossible. For anyone who has visited Assos village, they would be able to tell you how narrow and steep the road leading down to the village is. At the moment the residents and some tourists are stranded with no way of getting out, no electricity and no clean running water. It has also been estimated it will cost over 50,000 Euro just to clear up just this one village.
As a result, the Facebook groups Kefalonian Wild Nature and Volunteers Kefalonia led by Katie Walsh and Kostas Vitor asked for volunteers on Saturday night who would meet and walk down to the village and deliver some food and water to the people who are stranded there.
“Just returned from Assos to give supplies to the residents.
Our business along with Simotas Car Rental business bought food (bread, ham, cheese, croissants, juices, energy bars, wet wipes etc) and water.
These expenses were covered by us as individuals, as the need was urgent and we did not have time to raise funds.
Just enough for tonight and tomorrow.
We found people living in complete darkness, between ruins, in the mud and the rocks. Assos needs months to recover. The amount of mud and rocks there is huge. The coast road, the tavernas, the port and the beach simply don’t exist anymore.
The photos don’t make justice.
If you want to help in any way, contact us. There is need for headlamps, batteries, power banks (solar power banks would be great) and a power generator would be the most ideal for these people. Everybody’s phones will be dying of battery any minute now and they need to be in communication.
Probably we will help other villages too if needed.
Special thanks to all the people who offered their help (no matter if they had the chance to come with us), to the people who donated money and came to hand it to us, to Simotas Car Rental for the extra car and joining us, Alexandra from Alexandra Kefalonia Massage and of course the restaurants from Argostoli who cooked the meals and offered them for free - Palia Plaka, Premier and La Gondola. Also many thanks to Thanos, the manager of Kritikos super market for his help with the table water.”
(20/09/2020 – Kefalonian Wild Nature)
These supplies as mentioned above, will only last for today and tomorrow and the expenses were covered by the individuals. If you would like to help, you can donate money to their PayPal account. The money will be used to buy some necessities and most importantly food and water.
Click on the link below if you would like to donate to the PayPal account:
https://www.paypal.me/kostasvitor
In collaboration with Kefalonia Volunteers, Sharon Taylor also created a GoFundMe page ‘Cyclone Kefalonia 2020’. Any funds raised will be donated to support their clean-up operation, supplying of food, clean water and ground force to the areas most affected by Madicane Ianos. This means the money raised will reach those who need immediate assistance all over the island.
Click on the link below if you would like to donate to the GoFundMe page
https://www.gofundme.com/f/Cyclone-kefalonia-2020
Kefalonia and especially Assos needs your help now!! Any donation big or small will help!!
(Photo Source: Kefalonian Wild Nature)
By Athena Sirmanoglou