What Valencia has taught us

The floods in Valencia, which cost more than 200 lives, are another loud alarm bell that should be heeded by Greece. This is especially true given that so many experts are warning that if the same amount of rain were to drop on Athens, the destruction in the Greek capital and the death toll would be so much greater than it was in the Spanish city.

The main reason is the Kifissos River, which marks the confluence of dozens of streams across the capital and does not have the capacity to hold the quantities of water that fell in Valencia, much less those that fell during storms Ianos and Daniel in Greece.

In such an event - an event that is not at all unlikely under the new climate conditions - the Kifissos would almost certainly overflow, flooding all the highly congested areas along its banks, all the way to Athens' southern coast, affecting the lives of thousands of...