Agriculture minister hopes to finish recording flood damage within the day

Agriculture Minister Maria Panayiotou on Monday said she hopes to complete the government’s recording of damage caused by Saturday evening’s storms by the end of the day.
Speaking at an agriculture conference, she said her priority is “to support the agricultural and livestock sector in practice”, with the aim of “having our farmers immediately return to normality”.
“We have crews out on the ground who are recording the damages,” she said, adding that the aim was to finish as soon as possible, so as to allow those entitled to compensation to receive it speedily.
“Our aim is for cabinet to approve the amounts as soon as possible, ideally within November, and for the process to go ahead as directly and as quickly as it can,” she added.
Teams from both the Limassol and Paphos district governments began recording the damage as early as Saturday night, with cabinet set to determine a final figure to be paid out to those impacted in the form of financial assistance based on those recordings.
Damage has already been reported to livestock farms in the Limassol district, with deputy district officer Elektra Panayiotou telling the Cyprus News Agency that farms in the villages of Pano Polemidia, Anogyra, Prastio, Avdimou, and other villages all reported storm damage.
Meanwhile, Kourion mayor Pantelis Georgiou said trees fell on houses and roof tiles flew off others in his municipality, with an electricity cable also falling into the road in front of his own car while he was driving.
Fire brigade spokesman Andreas Kettis said a total of 54 callouts were received on Saturday, most of which concerned matters such as trees falling into roads or requests for rainwater to be pumped away.
Meanwhile, in the Paphos district village of Konia, the fire brigade were called to rescue two people who were trapped inside vehicles on a flooded road, while it is estimated that 40 properties in the Paphos district suffered flooding.
In Paphos on Monday, local political groups attempted to get to the bottom of any infrastructural deficiencies whish exacerbated the damage caused by the floods, with the town’s Akel branch calling on the municipality to carry out a “long-term maintenance plan” regarding the infrastructure built in the town centre.
They also called for a new study to be carried out regarding the town centre’s drainage system, as they said the existing system “did not respond as it should have” during the storms.
Additionally, they said they had “warned [Paphos mayor Phedonas Phedonos] about a series of issues in recent years, unfortunately to no avail”.
“The cutting down of a large number of trees, which was done following the mayor’s instructions, but also the transformation of the centre of Paphos into its current large concrete-paved state, without the requisite infrastructure and with limited green spaces, contributed to the tragic situation,” they said.