When nature lays us bare…

Opinion climate crisisWeather When nature lays us bare… Cape Greco Weather Relevant News When nature lays us bare… 31 August 2026 King Charles to honour Cypriot woman for protecting children from exploitation 31 August 2026 Two fire outbreaks near Cape Greco extinguished by passing citizens 31 August 2026 Christakis Efstathiou 31 August 2026 FacebookXWhatsAppEmailPrintViber We found ourselves, yet again, before an almost identical scene. Everything that was supposed to come first had come first — and on time, too — including the warnings from the meteorological service, which had indeed rushed to sound the alarm. And yet Saturday’s first autumn downpour caught us, once again, almost completely unprepared. Roads turned into raging torrents, businesses and homes flooded, and daily life was knocked out of joint within minutes. The facts themselves expose us every time. The image of a state that remains fortified in words but naked when it comes to basic infrastructure will, sadly, stay with us for a long time yet — however hard we try to prettify reality with PR tricks and carefully managed impressions. We are nowhere near the orbit of responsibility when we treat such scenes as unfortunate one-off incidents that somehow drop out of the sky. They are not. They are the bitter truth, exposing deeper pathologies that seem to have burrowed, incurably, into our very DNA. Responsibility, like another kind of flood, swamps not only the competent services but the mentality of all of us. We live in a place where basic flood-protection works — and not only those — remain largely on paper; where blocked drains are remembered only after the damage is done; where everything that leaves our own credibility sunk at rock bottom resurfaces with such stark and unforgiving force. These phenomena will not only keep repeating themselves; they may well become more frequent under the shadow of the climate crisis, about which scientists have been warning with growing urgency. We are, after all, in a part of the planet that is particularly vulnerable, however much we avoid coming to terms with the facts staring us in the face. There are, surely, some issues that demand a little more seriousness, a little more responsibility, a little more long-term planning — far from PR fireworks and other agendas. When nature itself puts us to the test, the excuses must run dry, at least over the basics. That, too, is a measure of competence: whether behaviours, even the behaviour of the weather, can at least become occasions for us to dare to assume our responsibilities. And if, at the end of the day, we cannot protect even ourselves from phenomena that are predictable, then the real problem is not the weather and its moods. It is our own flood tide of irresponsibility. Subscribe to our Newsletter Latest News King Charles to honour Cypriot woman for protecting children from exploitation Two fire outbreaks near Cape Greco extinguished by passing citizens Music by Moonlight: Acclaimed Italian Orchestra makes its debut in Cyprus Kyrenia boat disaster: Weather grounded Filo Jet, then cleared it for departure an hour later Ship that sank off Kyrenia flooded in a 2003 collision, court records show Greece signs €3bn air defence deal with Israel Police seek missing British twins targeted in dark web murder plot in Cyprus Follow en.philenews on Google News and be the first to know all the news about Cyprus and the world.