Hymettus

A cold front dubbed Leandros is hitting Greece with snow on Saturday, with power outages reported in the eastern part of Thessaloniki.

Regions as far south as Crete are expecting an onslaught heavy rain and strong winds that will last through Tuesday.

Athenians are seen strolling on the forested Hymettus mountain in the district of Kaisariani on Friday, to mark Labor Day - known in Greece as Protomayia. The holiday is traditionally celebrated by going to the countryside to gather flowers and make wreaths. [Pantelis Saitas/ANA-MPA] 

Greece's Environment Ministry plans to extend a ban on construction activity on the slopes of Mount Hymettus in Attica through October 2020.
A legislative act is to be signed Tuesday by President Prokopis Pavlopoulos. The ministry is essentially seeking to buy time until the issuing of a presidential decree designed to protect Mount Hymettus, a sensitive ecosystem.

A large fire that began after midnight Sunday in the eastern Athens suburb of Paiania had raced up the slopes of Mt Hymettus and reached its peak before it was brought under control Monday morning. The fire damaged radio station installations in the area. Concerns have been raised by the possibility that it could have been caused by a short circuit in the cables of Public Power Corporation.

A big fire that spread quickly overnight in an eastern suburb of Athens appeared to be under control soon after dawn Monday.

The fire had raced up the slopes of 1,026-meter (3,366 feet) Mount Hymettus, which separates suburban Peania from the main city. Flames shooting up the mountain on what was a pretty extensive front could be seen from Athens early Monday morning.

Members of an anti-establishment group on Thursday staged a sit-in at the old Hymettus town hall east of Athens in objection to a scheduled speech by Kyriakos Velopoulos, leader of the nationalist Greek Solution party.

One riot police unit has been dispatched to the scene.

No more information was immediately available.

The Environment Ministry has banned any further construction activity on the slopes of Mount Hymettus in Attica until October 2018.

The Ancient Theater of Epidaurus in the Peloponnese is seen blanketed in snow, as a cold front swept in across the country Thursday. In Attica, people woke up to snowfall, especially in the northern suburbs of Kifissia and Ekali, while downtown Athens and even the southern coast were also given a light dusting.

Athenians woke up to a blanket of snow on Thursday morning, as a cold front that swept into Greece overnight affected most parts of the country and particularly higher altitudes.

Greek authorities are on high alert due to high winds blowing Saturday across the country. In the prefecture of Laconia in the Peloponnese, firefighters have managed to contain most of the fire front but are still operating to extinguish smaller spots around the region. 130 firefighters and 51 vehicles started their operations at the break of dawn.