Severe storms battering Greece have turned deadly, with a 25-year-old man killed on Rhodes after floodwaters swept his car into the sea. Torrential rain has also caused flooding, forced evacuations and disrupted transportation across several parts of the country, barely two weeks after devastating storms struck Crete. Against this backdrop, two new international reports reveal troubling weaknesses in Greece’s disaster preparedness. Nearly half of those affected by a disaster over the past five years said they received no advance warning, while public confidence in government and key institutions has deteriorated sharply.
The findings come from two reports published as part of the 2026 World Risk Poll by Lloyd’s Register Foundation, based on more than 143,000 interviews conducted by Gallup across 140 countries and territories in 2025, including a nationally representative sample of 1,006 respondents in Greece. One examines how well individuals and societies can withstand and recover from crises, while the other focuses on whether people receive disaster warnings and are able to act on them. Both reveal significant shortcomings in Greece, from emergency warning coverage to institutional resilience and public trust.
Greece Records Sharpest Decline in Societal Resilience
One of the most striking findings concerns societal resilience, a measure of public confidence in institutions, perceptions of government support and experiences of discrimination. While the global average rose to a record 66 points in 2025, up from 63 in 2021, Greece moved sharply in the opposite direction. The country’s score fell by 11 points over the same period, the largest decline among six high-income countries singled out in the report for substantial deterioration.
New Zealand recorded an eight-point drop, while Australia, the Netherlands, Estonia and France each fell by six points. The decline in Greece was accompanied by falling confidence in the national government, the armed forces and the judiciary. Respondents also became less likely to believe that their government cared about their well-being.
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These measures form part of the World Risk Poll’s broader Resilience Index, which assesses how well individuals, households, communities and societies can withstand shocks and recover from them. The findings point to a particularly concerning pattern among wealthy countries. Despite their greater economic resources, high-income nations recorded the lowest average societal resilience score of any income group, at 57 points.
Globally, overall resilience remained unchanged at 57 points in 2025, even as individual resilience deteriorated and societal resilience improved. Greece, however, scored poorly on overall resilience, falling below both the global average and that of Southern Europe.
Seven in 10 Greeks Say Government Does Not Care
A separate measure of public attitudes reveals an even more pronounced lack of confidence in government. Some 70% of respondents in Greece said they believed their government did not care about their well-being “at all,” placing the country among those with the highest levels of perceived government indifference worldwide. The contrast with the global picture is considerable. Across the 140 countries and territories surveyed, 29% of adults said their government did not care about them at all, while 22% believed it cared a lot.
The report also examines whether people feel supported by their neighbors, finding that perceptions of government and community support are closely related. Countries where people feel neglected by public institutions also tend to report weaker perceptions of care within their communities. That relationship matters for disaster preparedness. The researchers found that people who felt strongly supported by their neighbors generally had greater household resilience, including a stronger capacity to cope with sudden financial or other disruptions.
Greece also stands out in the relationship between resilience and personal well-being. Most wealthy countries combine relatively high levels of life satisfaction with stronger resilience. Greece scores poorly on both measures despite its high-income status, according to the report.
Nearly One in Four Greeks Affected by Disasters
The second report, From Alert to Agency: What Turns Warnings Into Action?, examines whether people exposed to disasters receive sufficient warning to protect themselves and their families.
In Greece, 23% of respondents said they had been personally affected by a disaster in the previous five years. That figure exceeds the global average of 20%, as well as the rates recorded in Southern Europe (21%), Eastern Europe (14%) and Northern and Western Europe (13%). Earlier surveys recorded higher figures for Greece, at 32% in 2021 and 36% in 2023. However, researchers caution against interpreting the apparent decline as evidence that disasters have become less frequent or less damaging.
The 2025 survey asked whether respondents had been personally affected by a disaster, rather than simply whether they had experienced one, as in previous editions. The revised question was intended to better capture the consequences for people’s lives and livelihoods, making direct comparisons between survey years unreliable.
Wildfires and Floods Dominate Greece’s Disaster Experience
Wildfires accounted for the largest share of the most significant disasters reported by respondents in Greece, at 35%. Floods, heavy rainfall and storms followed closely at 33%, while earthquakes accounted for 19%. Snowstorms represented 10% and droughts 1%. These percentages refer to the single disaster that affected respondents most severely during the preceding five years, rather than the overall frequency of each type of event.
The findings underline how different Greece’s experience is from the global pattern. Worldwide, floods and heavy rainfall accounted for 39% of the most consequential disasters reported, followed by tropical storms at 19% and earthquakes at 10%. Wildfires represented just 3% of the global total, compared with 35% in Greece.
Almost Half of Those Affected Received No Warning
Perhaps the most immediately consequential finding concerns the reach of disaster warnings. Despite the prominence of Greece’s 112 emergency alert system, which sends warnings to mobile phones, only 55% of respondents who said they had been affected by a disaster reported receiving at least one advance warning. The remaining 45% said they had received none.
The gap is particularly striking compared with the rest of Europe. In Southern Europe, 25% of disaster-affected respondents reported receiving no advance warning, compared with 23% in Eastern Europe and 17% in Northern and Western Europe, according to the global report. Greece’s figure of 45%, confirmed in the country-specific findings, is considerably higher than all three regional averages.
The survey does not establish why so many people in Greece went unwarned, nor does it measure the performance of the 112 system in isolation. Respondents were asked whether they received advance notice through any of several channels, including mobile messages, television, radio and online platforms. Researchers also warn against direct comparisons with previous surveys because the 2025 poll examined eight warning channels, compared with four in 2023.
SMS Alerts Are Greece’s Main Source of Warnings
Text messages were the most frequently reported warning channel among disaster-affected respondents in Greece, cited by 44%. Internet and social media followed at 35%, television at 26% and radio at 10%. Other methods played a relatively minor role, including newspapers at 5%, loudspeakers and WhatsApp at 4% each, and public signs at 2%.
The pattern differs from global findings, where the internet and social media were the most frequently cited sources at 59%, followed by television at 58%, text messages at 54% and radio at 37%.
But receiving a warning does not necessarily mean people can act on it. Globally, only 64% of respondents who received advance warnings said they were able to take protective action as a result. More than one-third could not.
The research found that warnings became more effective when delivered through several channels. Among those who received a single warning, 37% were able to act, compared with 51% of those reached through two channels and 64% of those reached through three.
Household preparedness was equally important. Among people who received warnings, 83% of those who had both a household disaster plan and confidence in their ability to protect their families reported taking action. That fell to 27% among those who had neither.
Source: Lloyd’s Register Foundation, in.gr