More than 12,000 lightning strikes were recorded across Greece today with heavy rain, the National Observatory in Athens said.
Meteorologists have been warning of intense thunderstorm activity since the beginning of the week, and residents of northern Greece received a special notification yesterday from the emergency number 112.
The storm reached Attica today and hit the northeastern suburbs of Athens the hardest. Heavy rainfall was also recorded on the island of Lesbos and in central Greece.
The fire service said several small fires broke out as a result of lightning strikes in the northern suburbs of Dionis, Marathon and Halandri.
The spokesman of the Fire Service, Vasilis Vatrakoianis, said that the rain failed to extinguish these fires, which is why the firefighters had to intervene.
