OUT OF THE DEPTHS

Lost Greek Village Submerged Under Lake Is Making a Reappearance

The village of Kallio has been under Lake Mornos since 1980.

A village submerged in water for more than four decades is re-emerging as Greece battles with the effects of drought and climate change. Kallio, the village in question, was flooded to make a man-made lake called Lake Mornos in 1980 to supply water for close to 50 percent of the Greek population. That includes the capital, Athens. But now, buildings are starting to re-emerge, and a picture of what the village was like before the lake is beginning to take shape as water levels plummet. According to Reuters, the previous 6.5-square-mile surface area of the lake has shrunk to 4.5 square miles in just two years. In addition to drought, heatwaves and snowless winters have exacerbated the situation. To mitigate the water problem, villages have implemented water cuts and have supplemented by taking water from other places. Efthymis Lekkas, a disaster management professor at the University of Athens, told the outlet the situation was an “alarm bell.”