Minister inspects Pissouri homes’ landslide damage

Agriculture Minister Christos Senekis made an on-site inspection of the landslides threatening the community of Pissouri on Friday, with local authorities stressing the need to find an immediate solution as the problem may have lessened in intensity but nevertheless persists. The Limassol self-government organisation (EOA) said on Monday that the minister, who was accompanied by EOA chairman Yiannis Tsouloftas, Limassol district governor Michalis Michail, interior ministry permanent secretary Elikkos Elia and other officials, was shown damage to homes from land slippage over many years. The tour was followed by a meeting at the Pissouri community council, where community leader Panayiotis Mavroudis delivered a memorandum with requests, including a sewage system that would contribute to stabilising the earth as less water would be seeping into the subsoil. Limassol’s EOA agreed to undertake the construction of a sewage and rainwater drainage system once the project obtains the required approval. In June 2025, a scientific study was published on the situation in Pissouri, where land slippage had rendered many residences unsafe for habitation, leading to eviction notices being issued. The study – undertaken by the Geological Survey Department and with the assistance of scientists and also experts from other countries – was described as the most thorough one yet. Mavroudis had back then said the decade-long problem was water accumulating in the subsoil in certain parts of the village, which in 2024 had been included in the list of the World Tourism Organisation’s list of the Top Tourist Villages of the world. Since 2012, property owners in the Limnes area of Pissouri have seen gaping cracks appear in interior and exterior walls, making their homes uninhabitable, swimming pools destroyed and roads buckle and split apart. Pavements, footpaths, retaining walls, drains, water pipes and other infrastructure works have been badly damaged. Drills in the past found gypsum at a depth of 60 metres. They also detected a void at 100 metres, which heightened suspicions that the phenomenon was far more extensive than previously thought.