Northern Greece

It was the largest building of classical Greece: the palace where Alexander the Great was proclaimed king before he launched a conquest that took him as far as modern-day Afghanistan.

The Palace of Aigai in northern Greece was fully reopened Friday following a 16-year renovation that cost more than 20 million euros and included financial support from the European Union.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (third from left) stressed on Friday that the Palace of Aigai in northern Greece is testimony to the "timeless Greek identity of Macedonia through the ages." Attending the inauguration of the recently restored Palace of Aigai, Mitsotakis noted the "great honor" he feels as prime minister to associate his name and that of his government with the emblematic rest

The livestock facilities that will be built anew on the flood-destroyed plain of Thessaly will be state-of-the-art and include escape routes for animals in case of new floods, officials at the Agricultural Development and Foods Ministry told the Athens-Macedonian News Agency.

In addition, they will be fully funded by the state.

Landslides were recorded in many parts of the mountainous road network in the prefecture of Epirus, western Greece, on Saturday morning, due to the heavy rains that hit the area overnight.

The Ministry of Rural Development and Food estimates that damage caused by the Daniel weather system to crop and animal production on the Thessaly Plain, a region famous for its agricultural production, will be three times worse than that which resulted from Ianos in 2020.

Some 73,000 hectares across Thessaly are under water, with 50,000-55,000 sown with cotton. 

Four people have been hospitalized with light injuries following an altercation in which a shotgun was fired in Larissa in Thessaly. 

According to local news site Larissanet, police are investigating the incident, which occurred in the Nea Smyrni district of the city.

All traffic on the Athens-Thessaloniki motorway from Nikea in Larissa to the border with Magnesia regional unit has been suspended due to flooding on the highway.

Thessaly regional police directorate ordered the road to be closed in both directions between the two points.

The National Meteorological Service has issued a warning of wet and stormy weather expected in parts of western and northern Greece from Saturday afternoon to early Sunday, as the weather system "Petar" makes its way to the country's shores.

The Civil Protection Ministry has warned of an "extreme danger" of fire in six of the country's 13 regions on Wednesday.

After average temperatures of 36.3 and a high of 42.6 degrees Celsius recorded by the country's weather stations on Friday, the mercury is expected to rise again slightly over the weekend and to reach 45C in places.

The country is facing a prolonged heat wave, one "worse than that of 1987," according to Antonis Lalos, director of the National Meteorological Service (NMS).