The cost of damage from the record floods in Greece's breadbasket is estimated to be in the billions

abcnews.go.com:

Greek officials are assessing the staggering cost of repairing the damage from record flooding and compensating residents and businesses

ZAGORA, Greece — The apples were almost ripe for harvesting when the worst storms in more than a century struck Greece's breadbasket in Thessaly.

Now, farmers on the forested slopes of Mount Pilion, which overlooks the plain of Thessaly, say they face millions of euros in damage from the flooding that began earlier this month. They will be lucky to salvage a third of their crop — and that will only happen if wrecked road access to their orchards is patched up in time.

As bad as the damage suffered by the Pilion farmers was, their peers in the plain were hit by even greater devastation from last week's disastrous floods that left 16 people dead, days after wildfires killed 20 people in northeastern Greece.

The storms flooded 720 square kilometers (280 square miles), mostly prime farmland, totally destroying crops. They also swamped hundreds of buildings, broke the country's railway backbone, savaged rural roads and bridges and killed tens of thousands of livestock.

Thessaly — a major farming center for thousands of years — accounts for about 5% of national economic output, and a much larger proportion of agricultural produce, although much of that is now cotton and tobacco.

Some areas remained under threat of flooding Friday, with some lakeside dwellers warned to prepare for evacuation if needed.

Greece, which has returned to fiscal health after an eight-year financial crisis that shook global markets, is now assessing the staggering cost of the flooding.

Finance Minister Kostis Hatzidakis said the precise sum remains elusive.

“But… we’re talking in the billions (of euros),” he told