Arta

A 50-year-old man was killed Thursday after a tree he was cutting down near the village of Ano Kalentini in Arta, western Greece, fell on him.

The local fire service was informed about the incident shortly after noon and dispatched six firefighters and three engines to the scene, but the 50-year-old had died by the time they arrived.

The final phase of Greece's much-anticipated land registry gets under way Monday, representing 63 percent of the country's expanse, the company carrying out this monumental project, the National Cadastre & Mapping Agency, has announced.

The collection of property ownership declarations will resume on November 19, starting with the southeastern Aegean islands of Karpathos and Kalymnos, the National Cadastre & Mapping Agency (Hellenic Cadastre) announced on Thursday.

Authorities in Epirus, northwestern Greece, seized 246 kilograms of cannabis in two police operations on Friday and Saturday.

Police arrested a 52-year-old woman on Saturday after finding 102 kg of the drug in her car in the region of Komboti in Arta.

On Friday, police confiscated 144 kg of cannabis found in an abandoned car in the region of Nea Selefkia in Thesprotia.

Working on a tip, police in Ioannina, northwestern Greece, found and seized two rucksacks packed with antiquities in a wooded area in the region of Arta on Wednesday morning.

According to reports, the antiquities date from the Archaic period (beginning in the 8th century BC) to the Byzantine era.

A mild earthquake struck the towns of Arta, in western Greece, and Preveza, slightly further north, on Tuesday morning, without any damage reported.

The tremor occured at 11.10 a.m. and was measured at 3.9 degrees on the Richter scale. It was also felt in the seaside town of Parga, on the Ionian sea, according to reports.

Interior Minister Panos Skourletis has approved 1,370,000 euros in aid for seven municipalities that suffered flood damage from torrential rain in early February. 

The local branches of conservation groups WWF and Greenpeace have called upon Greek lawmakers to vote against an Environment Ministry bill green-lighting hydrocarbon exploration and extraction in Block 2 of the Ionian Sea, as well as the onshore blocks Arta-Preveza, Aitoloacarnania, and Northwestern Peloponnese.

The restoration of a historic 19th century single-arch stone bridge in Arta, northwestern Greece, that collapsed in flooding in February 2015, is progressing apace after the foundations were completed on Tuesday.

In the yard in front of the old three-story school in Syrrako, a cafe now welcomes visitors for a cup of coffee or something stronger. In Vourgareli – the once kefalohori (or ‘head-village’) of Ottoman beys and local herdsmen, the entrance to the headquarters of the legendary resistance figure Napoleon Zervas may be overgrown with weeds, but curtains still hang in the windows.