Kozani

A total of 3,309 speeding offenses and 62 violations regarding safety precautions for the transport of children were confirmed by traffic police during inspections conducted nationwide from May 4 to 10, the Hellenic Police (ELAS) said on Tuesday.
More specifically, a total of 17,320 vehicles were inspected by 957 traffic police units.

Greek authorities lifted on Monday the strict restrictions on movement for two mountainous villages in western Macedonia which had been placed on lockdown since March 16 due to a cluster of coronavirus deaths and infections.

Eleven snow ploughs were dispatched by municipal authorities in northern Greece to clear roads on and around Mount Hortiatis, which received more than 30 centimeters of snowfall overnight and on Thursday morning.

Three patients who were infected with the new coronavirus died in the past 12 hours, bringing Greece's death toll from the ongoing epidemic to 46.

A 79-year-old man died in the early hours of Tuesday at the Bodosakeio Hospital of Ptolemaida in the northern region Kozani, one of the harder hit parts of Greece.

One more person died in Greece on Friday from complications related to the novel coronavirus bringing the total number to seven, state-run news agency ANA-MPA reported.

The victim is an 85-year-old man with serious underlying health problems who was being treated at the Mamatsio Hospital in Kozani, northern Greece, the report said.

Two villages in western Macedonia were quarantined on Monday where authorities have recorded in the past few days three deaths from the new coronavirus and more than 10 infections, according to the General Secretariat of Civil Protection.

The villages, Damaskinia and Dragasia, are located between the towns of Kozani and Kastoria.

A fourth death from the coronavirus has been confirmed in Greece. The patient, a 53-year-old man, died early Sunday, in Thessaloniki. He had been rushed to the AHEPA hospital from the citiy of Kozani in critical condition Tuesday. He is the youngest fatality thus far, but like the other three, had a serious underlying disease.

Very low temperatures, rain and snowfall accompanied by strong winds were the main characteristics of the weather in Greece on Thursday.

The lowest temperatures recorded by the Meteo service stations of Athens National Observatory on Thursday were -6.4C in the village Vlasti of Kozani, -4.7C in Vytina, in Arcadia, Peloponnese and -4.7C in Mavrolithari, central Greece.

Τemperatures dropped below zero on Wednesday (Christmas Day) in several mountainous areas of Greece, Greece's National Meteorological Service (EMY) said, warning that a new cold front will bring rain and snow as of Friday.

Workers at the state-run Public Power Corporation will be staging a rally on Monday in Kozani, northern Greece, to protest the government's plans to shut down all of the country's lignite-powered plants starting next year.

The rally against the "sudden death" of PPC, according to unionists, will start at 5 p.m. at the main square of the town of Ptolemaida.