Snow collapses Athens, where only supermarkets, gas stations and pharmacies remain open

The big snow has returned a year later.

The snowflakes that fell on Athens this Monday morning were just a picturesque anecdote to be photographed until 10:30 in the morning.

At that time, the mobile phones of citizens who live or are passing through the Greek region of Attica, where the country's capital is located, received an alert with a message that left no room for doubt: "alarm".

The snowfall left by the storm Elpis -baptized after the goddess of Hope- intensified and the notice asked that travel be limited to the essentials.

Almost all national and international flights are still suspended this Tuesday and maritime traffic is also paralyzed.

In Athens, only supermarkets, gas stations and pharmacies remain open.

Some areas of the Attica basin had been without power for almost a day, according to the Efe news agency.

Despite the teams deployed, the repair is proving to be complicated, not only because trees that have fallen on electricity poles have to be removed, but also because the snow that has accumulated on the power lines has frozen and in some places is breaking the wires.

The Athenians remember perfectly the last snowfall of these magnitudes, it was in February of last year and then they had spent a decade without seeing something similar.

On Monday the stores lowered their shutters, the subway filled with people who returned home before lunch and driving on the asphalt was increasingly difficult.

The cars with chains were the only ones that managed to continue rolling and survive a weather episode that was planned and that, however, according to the government spokesman, Yannis Ikonomu, in statements to the private network Skai, left more than half a thousand of people more than twenty hours in their cars waiting for the snowplows.

During this past night, 1,800 vehicles could be removed from the Athens ring road, but on Tuesday 1,200 were still there, some abandoned, but others with people inside.

Thousands of citizens who were evacuated from their cars on the highway took shelter overnight at the Eleftherios Venizelos airport.

"It took me two hours to get to the airport, when it would normally take 50 minutes," explains Andrés Pujol, a man from Madrid who spent the weekend in Athens celebrating the birthday of a friend from Barcelona who did manage to catch his return flight on Monday morning. the morning.

Andrés's, operated by Iberia, and many others were canceled by trickle and at 9:00 p.m. on Monday it was impossible to leave the aerodrome either by taxi or public transport.

Hundreds of people spent the night between the benches, the luggage carts and the icy floor of a facility where there were no free plugs and where very few left without queuing at least once for Gregory's, the only place that served food non-stop and hot drink.

Also beer, homeland and imported.

Elpis has once again tested a country that is not used to being paralyzed like this and that trusts that "the last goddess", as she is also known, will bring an end to these unusual snowfalls.

The snow also shook Istanbul

Some flights from Istanbul airport, the most populous city in Turkey, have resumed this Tuesday after snowfall, after almost 24 hours of cancellations and clogged roads.

In the city of 16 million people, the snowfall began at the end of last week and was increasing, reaching 80 centimeters in thickness in some areas.

The Minister of the Interior, Suleyman Soylu, asked citizens not to use their private cars if it is not strictly necessary, after hundreds of vehicles were trapped in the snow.

The storm also affected the southwestern region of Turkey, reaching the city of Antalya (located on the country's Mediterranean coast), which recorded its first snowfall in 29 years. 

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