Polis Chrysochous is “on alert” after bearing the brunt of Storm Byron and facing extensive flooding over the weekend, the town’s mayor Yiotis Papachristofi said on Monday.
He told the Cyprus News Agency that his municipality is “in close cooperation with all the competent services for any further needs which may arise”, and that “thanks to a collective effort, most of the problems have already been addressed to a large extent”.
He added that teams from his municipality would continue to work “with the aim of fully restoring normality” in flood-affected areas “and protecting residents and their property”.
Additionally, he thanked “private individuals” who “also contributed by providing excavators and other equipment, contributing to the effort to immediately address the problems”.
He also thanked the police and the fire brigade “for their cooperation, immediate mobilisation, and coordination”, and municipal workers who “worked tirelessly under difficult conditions”.
The road linking Polis Chrysochous and nearby Latchi was closed for hours on Sunday due to extensive flooding, while Christofi had said on Sunday that “several” landslides had occurred in the region.
In addition, he said, “several buildings and basements” in the town had been flooded.
The storms began in earnest on Friday night, with heavy rainfall and strong winds hitting swathes of the island throughout the weekend.
On Sunday, met office senior officer Panayiotis Georgiou had said rain will continue to fall in Cyprus until Thursday, with the eye of Storm Byron is currently located west of the island and moving slowly eastwards.
Earlier, tornadoes were reported in both the Paphos and Kyrenia districts on Friday night, with uprooted trees falling on properties near the Vrasida folk art museum in the Paphos district village of Tala and the village’s mukhtar Ioannis Konnikos saying electricity cables nearby had caught fire after being struck by a fallen tree.
He said that the electricity authority was immediately notified and that power was restored to the affected areas after a two-hour power cut.
In Kyrenia, meanwhile, workers at the Teknecik power station reported “significant damage” to the power station’s entrance and an administrative building as a result of a tornado.
Turkish Cypriot electricity workers’ trade union El-Sen said its workers were “working tirelessly and diligently to repair the damage and restore normal operations as quickly as possible”.
