Floods in Mandra: Rena Dourou opens the cycle of apologies

More than four years after the deadly floods in Mandra of Attica, which led to the death of 25 people, the time of the defendants’ pleas in the trial currently underway in the Second Trial Court of Athens, has arrived.

The then Prefect of Attica is expected to be the first to apologize today, Monday (10/1) for misdemeanor charges, Rena Dourou, the name of which is included in the list of the 21 accused in the case. Among them, apart from Mrs.Dourou, are the former deputy mayor of West Attica, the then mayors of Mandra, Elefsina, Megareon, executives of urban planning and the competent municipalities, foresters, forestry officials, etc..

The offences faced by the defendants

The defendants face four counts of misdemeanor offenses: Negligent flooding, negligent homicide by omission committed by a person liable for negligence, negligent bodily injury by omission committed by a person liable for negligence committed by a person liable for negligence and negligent breach of duty by omission.

The specific offences that have been attributed to the 21 defendants in the case, «step» legally on the order issued by the prosecutor Sotiria Papageorgakopoulou, who had investigated the causes of the tragedy that occurred in West Attica in November 2017.

During her month-long investigation, the prosecutor had found an orgy of arbitrariness, omissions and absolute lack of flood control works in the area of Mandra with the responsibility of the Region of Attica, the competent Forestry and the municipalities involved.

As the prosecutor stated in her order, in the affected area had not done any flood protection work by the competent services of the Region of Attica, despite the fact that there were mature studies, approved appropriations. And this, while everyone knew that similar phenomena had occurred in the region in 2014-2015. For this reason, according to the prosecutor's order, the area should have been placed on the priority list for flood protection.

Among other things, the prosecutor after her investigation found:

That there was «a complete lack of flood control works on the part of the Region and the non-existence of registration of arbitrary buildings and delimitation of the streams in the area». The provision is noted: «Summarizing, in this area where the flood occurred, namely in the area Mandra - Idilia - Nea Peramos - Elefsina, had not done any flood protection work by the competent authorities of the Region of Attica, although there were mature studies and approved urgent funds for urgent execution of works, given that similar events had occurred in the past, in particular in 2014-2015, and the area should have been placed on the priority list in terms of the need for flood protection.».

That critical factors that contributed to the huge disaster were «arbitrary interventions within the bed of the streams, the inadequacy of existing technical works, either due to construction or due to failure to clean and maintain by the services involved, namely complete lack of flood protection measures and lack of mountain hydrology projects».

The apology of Douros

Today, during her apology in court, the accused former Attica Region Governor, Rena Dourou, is expected to deny the responsibility attributed to it, citing expert reports and projects carried out during its time to improve flood protection. It is not excluded that it will be mentioned in the the severity of the weather phenomenon that hit Attica during those days, as well as 163 flood protection projects amounting to half a billion euros, which were either completed or in progress at the time.

Furthermore, the information says that Ms.Dourou will rely on two expert opinions on the existence or not of responsibilities of the Attica region, which are signed by auditors of the Public Administration and engineers, who were appointed by the Technical Chamber of Greece. In none of the expert opinions is any responsibility attributed to the services of the Attica Region and the Regional Governor, Rena Dourou.

In addition, the accused former regional governor of Attica, according to reports, will talk about an attempt to blame all the mistakes of the administration over time on her. It is noted, that in her apologetic memorandum, she had argued that «the investigative investigation does not seem to turn to the actual acts or omissions that could relate to the direct responsibilities of a regional governor, but ‘‘charges’’ to the regional governor the countless, existing or not, omissions or failures of any employee, any service of the region».