Cyprus’s madness: tragedy first, action second

Opinion accidentayia napaFamagustaWeather Cyprus’s madness: tragedy first, action second Tragodia Kavo Greco Relevant News Cyprus’s madness: tragedy first, action second 2 September 2026 Cabinet approves up to €45,000 in aid for August storm damage 2 September 2026 Six West Nile virus cases confirmed in Cyprus, all hospitalised 2 September 2026 Giorgos Kallinikou 2 September 2026 FacebookXWhatsAppEmailPrintViber It took a tragedy at Cape Greco for us to discover that the Republic of Cyprus has no clear legal framework allowing authorities to ban boats from putting to sea when the weather makes it too dangerous. Now, after the tragedy, the authorities have suddenly discovered a sense of urgency. There’s talk of departure bans depending on weather conditions and the type of vessel, and moves are underway to get the measure onto the statute book. And that’s where the real problem starts. Because in Cyprus, this isn’t the exception. It’s a recurring pattern. First the disaster happens. Then we discover the gap. Then we call a meeting. And finally, we take the measures that should have been in place before the tragedy. The same thing happened with the drownings near the breakwaters in Oroklini. It took people dying at sea for the issue of safety in that area, and adequate lifeguard cover, to shoot back onto the agenda. Nothing’s actually been done for that specific stretch yet, but at least the Interior Ministry has been spurred into action to sort out the lifeguard shortage. It was the same story with the devastating wildfire in the Limassol mountains. It took a huge area burning, properties destroyed and two lives lost before decisions to reinforce aerial firefighting resources were fast-tracked. Before new solutions were sought. Before coordination between the services involved was strengthened by appointing the Fire Service’s Chief Officer to lead it. Sometimes, it seems, disaster has to come first before prevention becomes a state priority. And this isn’t just about fires and the sea. In Limassol, for twelve years now, around seventeen different agencies have been involved in the pollution issue, without managing to achieve the coordination needed for an effective solution. What exactly are we waiting for? A bigger environmental catastrophe? Actual casualties? Does the damage have to happen first? Only then do we discover the agencies need to work together? None of this is new, of course. Mari is the most painful example of all. The 2011 explosion left 13 people dead. The danger from storing that material didn’t appear out of nowhere that morning. It existed, it was known, and warnings had been sounded. But it took the tragedy itself to expose, in the most tragic way possible, the failures and omissions running through every level of the state. Similar examples exist in road safety too. Seatbelts on buses: it took a death before anything was done. Speed limiters on trucks and buses: it took a fatal accident on the Nicosia to Limassol motorway in October 2000 before the decision on limiters was finally made. Even CY Alert, a genuinely useful tool built to warn citizens in good time, fell into exactly the same broken logic. The service was used last Saturday, when the storm was already blowing itself out. A prevention tool is worthless once the critical moment has already passed. The explanations offered by Civil Defence are excuses that don’t wash. We cannot keep hearing, time and again, that “measures were decided after the incident.” Because that isn’t prevention. That’s cleaning up a disaster after it’s already happened. A state’s job isn’t to run around managing a crisis. It’s to do everything in its power to head off the crisis so the tragedy never happens in the first place. The man who drowned at Cape Greco isn’t coming back because a regulation is about to change. The people lost in the fires aren’t coming back because we’re throwing more resources at it now. The 13 dead of Mari aren’t coming back because accountability was sought afterwards. The question the state and its officials need to answer, sitting on their fat pay packets, isn’t what will change after Cape Greco. It’s how many more deaths Cyprus needs before every gap, in every single sector, finally gets plugged. How many more people have to drown? How many more have to burn? How many more have to be killed on our roads? How many more disasters have to happen before we mobilise beforehand, instead of afterwards? Because prevention that only begins once we start counting the dead isn’t prevention at all. And a state that waits for tragedy before it becomes proactive isn’t protecting its citizens. It’s managing the fallout of its own incompetence. 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