{"id":312392,"date":"2026-04-02T20:00:46","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T14:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=312392"},"modified":"2026-04-02T20:00:46","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T14:30:46","slug":"man-dies-in-athens-and-skies-turn-blood-red-over-crete-in-sahara-dust-storm-news-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/04\/02\/man-dies-in-athens-and-skies-turn-blood-red-over-crete-in-sahara-dust-storm-news-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Man dies in Athens and skies turn blood red over Crete in Sahara dust storm | News World"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<figure class=\"img-container shareable-item wp-caption\">\n<div class=\"img-wrap\">\n\t\t\t<\/div><figcaption>The skies appeared almost apocalyptic over Crete (Picture: EPA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Skies over the Greek island of Crete have turned blood red and flights arebeing diverted as a cloud of dust from the Sahara drifts over the region.<\/p>\n<p>Planes have been grounded on the island\u2019s predominant airport in Heraklion, while a British Airways service from London was rerouted to Corfu.<\/p>\n<p>One other flight from Brussels was diverted to Athens after the thick dustreduced visibility to around 1,000 metres \u2013 a degree at which it is taken into account unsafe to land.<\/p>\n<p>Weather experts warned the phenomenon \u2013 referred to as a \u2018calima\u2019 \u2013 had led to extremely high levels of dust with greater than 1,000 micrograms per cubic metre of air.<\/p>\n<p>The Greek national meterological service placed a red warning over the island for heavy rain and violent thunderstorms as Storm Erminio hits.<\/p>\n<p>Flooding from the rain will pose a \u2018significant risk to life and evacuations are possible\u2019, HNMS said, while the storms can even end in \u2018danger to life from lightning, hail, flooding and storm damage\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>All the Greek mainland and lots of islands have also been given yellow and orange warnings for rain and storms, with only the Dodecanese islands off the coast of Turkey avoiding the worst of the weather.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"img-container shareable-item wp-caption\">\n<div class=\"img-wrap\">\n\t\t<img width=\"646\" height=\"431\" src=\"https:\/\/metro.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/SEI_291749123-dc59.jpg?quality=90&#038;strip=all&#038;w=646\" class=\"article-image wp-image-27818317\" alt=\"epa12865170 A man takes pictures as the city of Heraklion that is covered in red dust coming from Africa, in Crete Island, Greece, 01 April 2026. Three international flights had to be diverted to alternative airports due to low visibility caused by African dust. EPA\/NIKOS CHALKIADAKIS\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\">\t<\/div><figcaption>A person takes an image of the bizarre scene in Heraklion (Picture: EPA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A person was found dead under a automotive early this morning within the Nea Makri near Athens, the local fire department said.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/embed.acast.com\/%24\/35d3734f-1e29-4d0b-a646-15776be08249\" width=\"100%\" height=\"120px\" class=\"metro-iframe iframe-autoheight \" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" name=\"69ce7d950d056\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<figure class=\"img-container shareable-item wp-caption\">\n<div class=\"img-wrap\">\n\t\t<img width=\"646\" height=\"431\" src=\"https:\/\/metro.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/SEI_291729185-243b.jpg?quality=90&#038;strip=all&#038;w=646\" class=\"article-image wp-image-27805637\" alt=\"A locql resident walks on the port of Ierapetra during a dust storm on the Greek island of Crete on April 1, 2026. (Photo by Eleftherios Elis \/ AFP via Getty Images)\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\">\t<\/div><figcaption>The dust placed a filter-like tint over the island (Picture: Eleftherios Elis\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Trees have been uprooted, a wall at a ceramics factory has collapsed and greenhouses have been damaged in gale-force winds.<\/p>\n<p>Some schools have also been closed amid the storm.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"img-container shareable-item wp-caption\">\n<div class=\"img-wrap\">\n\t\t<img width=\"646\" height=\"431\" src=\"https:\/\/metro.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/SEI_291749092-da21.jpg?quality=90&#038;strip=all&#038;w=646\" class=\"article-image wp-image-27818319\" alt=\"epa12865166 People look on the city of Heraklion that is covered in red dust coming from Africa, in Crete Island, Greece, 01 April 2026. Three international flights had to be diverted to alternative airports due to low visibility caused by African dust. EPA\/NIKOS CHALKIADAKIS\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\">\t<\/div><figcaption>Some locals were brave enough to enterprise into the dense cloud (Picture: EPA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"img-container shareable-item wp-caption\">\n<div class=\"img-wrap\">\n\t\t<img width=\"646\" height=\"430\" src=\"https:\/\/metro.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/SEI_291729252-5ec7.jpg?quality=90&#038;strip=all&#038;w=646\" class=\"article-image wp-image-27805629\" alt=\"A locql resident walks on the port of Ierapetra during a dust storm on the Greek island of Crete on April 1, 2026. (Photo by Eleftherios Elis \/ AFP via Getty Images)\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\">\t<\/div><figcaption>The \u2018calima\u2019 is predicted to only last a day or two (Picture: Eleftherios Elis \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A tornado reportedly flipped a truck that was preparing to be loaded with agricultural exports in Pachia Ammos within the north of Crete.<\/p>\n<p>In Chania, on the north-west coast, a light-weight rain mixed with the dust to land as mud on houses, cars and streets.<\/p>\n<p>Amber warnings will remain in place on Crete and quite a few eastern islands tomorrow, while yellow warnings proceed to cover much of the mainland.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><strong><strong><strong>Get in contact with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><strong>For more stories like this, <\/strong><strong>check our news page<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"metro-more-link\"><svg><title>Arrow<\/title>\n<use xlink:href=\"#common-right-arrow\" href=\"#common-right-arrow\"><\/use><\/svg><span class=\"mor-link\" data-track-module=\"mor-link_article\">MORE: Shipwreck graveyard dating back 2,600 years discovered off ancient Greek island<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"metro-more-link\"><svg><title>Arrow<\/title>\n<use xlink:href=\"#common-right-arrow\" href=\"#common-right-arrow\"><\/use><\/svg><span class=\"mor-link\" data-track-module=\"mor-link_article\">MORE: The perfect destinations for April sun \u2014 all lower than 4 hours from the UK<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"metro-more-link\"><svg><title>Arrow<\/title>\n<use xlink:href=\"#common-right-arrow\" href=\"#common-right-arrow\"><\/use><\/svg><span class=\"mor-link\" data-track-module=\"mor-link_article\">MORE: Greece\u2019s Blue City is \u2018untroubled by tourists\u2019 but now it\u2019s getting latest Jet2 flights<\/span><\/p>\n<section id=\"share-buttons-bottom\" class=\"share-buttons share-buttons-bottom\"><a class=\"metro-button share-bar-comments\" data-vars-position=\"bottom\" href=\"#metro-comments-container\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<span><svg><title>Comment now<\/title>\n<use xlink:href=\"#social-comment\" href=\"#social-comment\"><\/use><\/svg><\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"share-bar-comments__label\">Comments<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t<span><svg><title>Add Metro as a Preferred Source on Google<\/title>\n<use xlink:href=\"#social-preferred-source\" href=\"#social-preferred-source\"><\/use><\/svg><\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"share-bar-preferred-source__label\">Add as preferred source<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/section>\n<div class=\"newsletter-end-card accent--news\">\n<div class=\"newsletter-end-card__inner\">\n<h4>News Updates<\/h4>\n<p>Stay on top of the headlines with every day email updates.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The skies appeared almost apocalyptic over Crete (Picture: EPA) Skies over the Greek island of Crete have turned blood red and flights arebeing diverted as a cloud of dust from the Sahara drifts over the region. Planes have been grounded on the island\u2019s predominant airport in Heraklion, while a British Airways service from London was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":312393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20691],"tags":[30524,1331,33182,5319,1262,1054,395,1955,34459,1265,4876,1898,813],"class_list":["post-312392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-athens","tag-blood","tag-crete","tag-dies","tag-dust","tag-man","tag-news","tag-red","tag-sahara","tag-skies","tag-storm","tag-turn","tag-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312392"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":312395,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312392\/revisions\/312395"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}