As of: February 21, 2024, 2:34 p.m
By: Johannes Welte, Kilian Bäuml
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A winter storm has destroyed Zakynthos' landmark.
Now the second most visited place in Greece is threatened with extinction.
Zakynthos - Nestled between steep cliffs, on a white sandy beach on the turquoise sea in Greece, lies a mysterious shipwreck.
Every year, Navagio Beach in Smugglers' Bay on the Greek island of Zakynthos in the Ionian Sea west of the mainland attracts around one and a half million visitors.
But Greece's most famous photo opportunity, beloved by influencers and tourists alike, has suffered a serious blow: the wreck of the coaster "Panagiotis", which was stranded off the island in 1980 and abandoned by its crew, broke up in a violent winter storm in January .
The hull, gnawed by salt water, was hit and broken open by meter-high waves.
But that's not all: the wreckage has sunk deeper into the sand.
Local boaters discovered the broken wreckage and images of the wreckage quickly spread on social media.
"Damned!
What a disaster!,” commented an Italian woman on her post, in which she shared footage from her summer trip when the wreck was still intact.
“Unfortunately this didn’t happen out of the blue, Mother Nature waits for no one!” adds another user.
Popular photo motif on Zakynthos is falling apart – is Navagio Beach threatened to end?
The mood on site is depressed because Smugglers' Bay is the second most popular tourist attraction in Greece after the Acropolis and an important attraction for the island.
In January, Zakynthos Mayor Giorgos Stasinopoulos called for management of the coast around Navagio Bay to be transferred from the Ministry of Tourism to Zakynthos Municipality.
“We all see the boat disappear.
“It is a shame that such a much-photographed place, visited by people from all over the world and which is the second most visited place in Greece, is at the mercy of God,” said Stasinopoulos in an interview with the Greek television channel
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“Keep in mind that tourists may stop coming if there will be no ship for them to see,” warns the mayor.
He demands that the remains of the ship be preserved, but without revealing how this will be achieved.
Greece's most famous beach is in danger after a shipwreck disaster
Professor Efthymios Lekkas, president of geology and environment at Kapodistrias University in Athens, warns that the entire beach will disappear with the wreck.
“The ship created an artificial dam that prevented the washed-up sand from being washed away,” he explains.
After the shipwreck in 1980, the beach was created within four to five years.
Lekkas predicts: “If the ship disappears now, the area will return to the condition it was before and there will be no beach left.”
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He recommends closing the beach to the public for safety reasons.
Navagio Beach and the shipwreck were previously temporarily closed to visitors in 2018 after a cliff collapsed following a magnitude 6.8 earthquake.
There have already been several earthquakes in the region and a landslide in the bay.
Nevertheless, many excursion boats headed for the bay.
Current videos show that the section of beach has already narrowed significantly, the water reaches up to the wreck and has already buried most of the ship under a lot of sand.
Tourist magnet is in danger of disappearing – shipwreck on Zakynthos broken
There are many legends surrounding the “Panagiotis” misfortune.
One of them says that the ship was traveling from Turkey to Italy with a load of smuggled cigarettes on behalf of the mafia when the engine failed off Zakynthos and the driverless ship was driven onto the beach.
Another version claims that on October 2, 1980, Captain Charalambos Kompothekras-Kotsoros was forced to beach the "Panagiotis" in the bay due to an engine failure.
Locals are said to have looted some of the ship's cargo and equipment.
The captain is said to have alerted the authorities, and 29 locals were later convicted of looting the wreck.
Greece's beaches are now a contested area: There was a devastating forest fire on the island of Rhodes, and hoteliers are trying to win back guests with free holidays.
And off the island of Santorini, researchers recently discovered evidence of a huge prehistoric volcanic eruption.
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