How drought brought a greek village back to the surface

Heat waves and lack of rainfall have led to retreating water levels in the Mornos reservoir, which submerged Kallio in the 1970s

No place is more indicative of the collapse in precipitation levels in Greece than the reappearance of a village long submerged. Decades-old ruins of this village have resurfaced after record temperatures led to the partial draining of a crucial reservoir.

This is Kallio, a village that was submerged, and its residents evacuated, by an artificial lake in the late 1970s. The Mornos Dam—built around 125 miles west of the capital, Athens—was constructed to secure a significant portion of the city’s water supply. Now, the prolonged drought plaguing Greece has caused the village to reappear.

“It’s like a nightmare,” says Apostolos Gerodimos, the head of the community of 60 people forced to move uphill when the dam was created. “The lower the water level drops, the more buildings that were submerged are emerging. If it doesn’t rain this winter, the problem will become much worse.”

A nation battling climate change

Among the countries most affected by the climate emergency, Greece has faced a series of heatwaves exacerbated by years of erratic rainfall. The thermometer reached record levels in June, July, and August, and consequently, water scarcity has become a major concern here as well. The most famous islands, many of which rely on wells and desalination plants, are particularly affected at a time when unprecedented tourist arrivals are putting even more pressure on resources already strained by the climate crisis.

In early July, before scorching temperatures became a daily occurrence, the water utility company, Eydap, estimated that water levels in the Mornos reservoir had dropped by 30% compared to the same period last year.