Torrential rain battered central Greece, flooding streets, homes and businesses in the port city of Volos and on the island of Evia, just three weeks after devastating Storm Daniel killed 16 people in the wider region.

A private helicopter crashed into the sea in northern Evia, east of the Greek capital Athens, and a search and rescue operation was underway.

It was not immediately clear what caused the accident.

More than 250 people have been evacuated from the area since Storm Elias struck on Wednesday afternoon, the fire brigade said on Thursday, adding that it had so far received 1,200 calls for help.

The storm hit Volos with rain so heavy that water levels in the city and its suburbs rose rapidly in a few hours. A nearby stream overflowed, adding to the flooding.

The mayor of Volos said that by Wednesday night, power outages caused by the storm and flooding had plunged 80% of the city into darkness. Authorities have stopped all vehicles from going onto the roads.

On Thursday morning, the storm had moved towards the island of Evia were some villages in northern Evia have been ordered to evacuate, state ERT TV said.

Storm Elias is the second major storm to hit the region since Daniel, the most intense storm to hit Greece since records began in 1930, battered the region for three days earlier in September.

U.S. Energy Department’s loan office on Thursday closed a $3 billion partial loan guarantee for a project to provide more than 100,000 homeowners with rooftop solar units and batteries and allow them to feed power into the local electric grid.

Sunnova Energy’s (NOVA.N) Project Hestia will give out loans to 75,000-115,000 homeowners throughout the U.S. to enable them to install rooftop solar, home battery systems and smart energy software that helps them use energy efficiently, the DOE said.

The project could potentially avoid 7.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions and generate 568 megawatts (MW) of emissions-free power over 25 years, it added.

Equipping homes with smart software and home energy generation can allow Sunnova to make them into Virtual Power Plants (VPP), networks of small energy-producing or storage devices that are pooled together to serve the electricity grid.

The Energy Department said on Thursday that this is the single largest commitment ever made by the U.S. government to solar power, and the DOE’s first loan guarantee for a VPP.

Project Hestia would target lower income homeowners and could create as many as 3,400 jobs, the Energy Department said.

VPPs have been on the rise in the U.S. since the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in 2020 allowed them to compete in wholesale power markets.

They are also being used in Australia, Japan and Europe by companies including Statkraft (STATKF.UL), Shell-owned (SHEL.L) Next Kraftwerke, and Tesla Inc.

Skardu Fort, also known as Kharpocho Fort, is a historic fortress which is located above the city of Skardu in the Gilgit-Baltistan Region, in the northern part of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

As there are some sources which claim that the fortress was built in 8 century, it is widely considered that it was built by King Ali Sher at the end of 16 century, and it was named Skardu Fort because it is considered to be the “King of Forts”.

With its important location, it was a primary target for attacks and occupation, and since the fort lies on the eastern face of the Khardrong Hill, also known as Mindoq-Khar or Castle of Queen Mindoq, it overlooks and protects the town that has the same name.

Within the fortress there aren’t structures which survived the time, however, there is a mosque that is considered to have been built with the arrival of the Islam in the region.

Still, the fortress was designed according to the model of some other fortresses, such as the Potala Palace in Tibet, China, but Skardu Fort was not fortunate enough to survive the plentiful campaigns of conquest, which finally was completely destroyed in 1857 under the guidance of the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir and head of the Jamwal Rajput clan, Ranbir Singh.

After the First Kashmir War, with a long siege of Skardu, the fortress became part of Kashmir that is still controlled by Pakistan, and at that time it was renamed into Gilgit-Baltistan.

Lastly, always succeeding to impress everyone who is eager and adventurous enough to visit this impressive Pakistani treasure, the Skardu Fort shall continue to tell the story of its long past that saw quite a lot of conquest and destruction, which in the end has only most of its walls to be the witnesses of those times.