- Four years after the devastating earthquake, families in Arkalochori and surrounding villages remain displaced.
- Temporary housing settlements in Arkalochori have become semi-permanent, with residents facing humidity, cold, and worsening health conditions.
- Despite hundreds of approved housing files, no family has yet returned to a restored home through the official state aid process.
- Bureaucratic delays and repeated exclusions from full housing assistance continue to stall reconstruction efforts in the area.
- Only a small number of households have begun rebuilding, essentially using personal savings or borrowed funds.
- Elderly residents in Arkalochori are among the most affected, often living alone and without adequate infrastructure.
- Signs of emotional fatigue are increasingly visible, including homes left undecorated during the holidays.
- Residents now place their hopes on 2026 as a possible turning point for returning home.
Waiting for Home, Four Years On
Four years after the earthquake that flattened Arkalochori nd deeply scarred the surrounding villages, life for hundreds of families remains suspended between loss and expectation. As documented in a detailed reportage by NeaKriti, this past Christmas was the fourth spent away from home for many residents, and the fifth winter now arrives with the same unresolved realities: metal housing units that trap humidity and cold, worsening health conditions—especially for the elderly—and a quiet psychological exhaustion that has settled into daily life.
Despite official assurances and hundreds of approved housing files, no family has yet managed to return to a restored home through the state aid system. The reasons are not technical alone. Shifting regulations, complex procedures, and repeated exclusions from full housing assistance have left residents navigating a maze where progress feels theoretical rather than real.
Bureaucracy, Fatigue, and Endurance
As local representatives explain, only a handful of families have begun rebuilding—and almost exclusively by relying on personal savings, selling land, or borrowing from friends. For most, life continues in containers or in damaged, “yellow-tagged” houses deemed unsafe, often without basic infrastructure such as adequate lighting.
And yet, dignity persists. In the settlements of Arkalochori, elderly residents gather and sing old songs—songs of loss, displacement, and injustice—not out of nostalgia, but as a way to endure, to remember who they were before everything stopped, and to hold on to the idea that life can still be rebuilt with meaning.
The full NeaKriti reportage goes beyond words, offering a powerful photo gallery that captures faces, spaces, and living conditions with honesty and restraint. It is a necessary reminder that behind every delayed file and legislative omission, there are real people, still waiting—not for miracles, but for the simple right to return home.
