She was just 10 days old when the great earthquake of Kalamata occurred on September 13, 1986.
She was pulled alive after 26 hours under the ruins of her house which had been flattened. And now, at 38 years old, she died suddenly while three months pregnant with her second child.
The reason is Maria Athanasopoulou, who died on April 5 at her home, causing mourning in Kalamata.
According to the Star, the woman was with her child at home when she suffered a severe epileptic episode with rigidity. However, she never managed to recover.
She lived, but with health problems.
Maria Athanasopoulou had become known throughout the country in 1986, when she herself did not understand anything, after the 6 magnitude earthquake that hit the Kalamata area.
Rescuers found her unconscious, and she had a large wound to her neck from an iron rod. Although she managed to survive, she had been facing serious health problems all her life.
“I was in my crib. What saved me was the iron from the mosquito net, but it got into my neck.
They thought I was dead, my parents found out from the news that I was alive,” she told the Star in 2023, a few weeks after the birth of her first child.
“She had unbearable headaches, unsteadiness and epilepsy”
Throughout the years, at Maria’s side stood her father. Besides, she managed to survive, but she did not avoid health problems, as she was without oxygen, water and food for 26 hours.
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“She spent 26 hours in the wreckage, she had a deep scar on her neck that left her with problems, she was never developed properly,” her father said after her death.
“The doctors never understood what her condition was.
She had symptoms of multiple sclerosis, but she didn’t have the disease.
She was on a lot of medication, she had unbearable headaches, instability and epilepsy,” he said.
