How Lake Karla in Greece was drained
Witness History
BBC
4.4 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 9 April 2024
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Lake Karla supported hundreds of families in Thessaly, providing fish for all of the region and beyond.
Christos and Ioanna Kotsikas grew up on the shores of the wetland and have mixed memories of the lake. They too lived off its fish, but they were also victims of its floods.
The lake was drained by the Greek Government in 1962, destroying a vital ecosystem.
In 2023, when torrential rain poured over Thessaly, the lake was restored – but the region was devastated.
Christos and Ioanna Kotsikas speak to Maria Margaronis.
(Photo: Lake Karla. Credit: Maria Margaronis)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless |
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| 0:21.0 | And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less |
| 0:24.9 | searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds. Hello, welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:39.8 | I'm Maria Margaronis taking you back to the broad plain of Thessaly in Greece in 1962. |
| 0:46.0 | A long ancient lake, Lake Carla, is being drained to make farmland for wheat and cotton and to prevent malaria. |
| 0:54.0 | Christus and Joanna Kotikas grew up in villages near its southern shore. |
| 0:58.0 | In 57, they started making the pipe. They drilled from the mountain to the sea on the other side. |
| 1:07.0 | And the water went out that way. But it took two years yesterday. |
| 1:12.0 | When the water drained away, what was left on the bottom? |
| 1:15.3 | Nothing. Dead fish, flapping. First there was a bob and then the box dried out and the air split up. |
| 1:25.0 | Scizma, Scizum, Scizum, Scrags, cracks, and all those cracks produced a kind of grass. |
| 1:32.0 | Hort, the whole... The whole lake filled back with grass. |
| 1:35.0 | The whole lake filled up with grass. |
| 1:37.0 | Good people glad it was strained. |
| 1:39.0 | Yes, they wanted fields. |
| 1:42.0 | They cheated people and they said will give you fields. The first year they produced and the second. Then nacking. |
| 1:49.0 | After a couple of years, the soil grew salty and the water table in the field sank too low to be useful. |
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