Ceremonial Laying of Wreath
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The traditional Ceremonial Laying of Wreathwill take place on Saturday, August 22, 2026 after the evening prayers at the memorial of the victims of 22nd of August 1962.
Eternal the memory of:
Panagiotis Bouloubasis, age 54
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From the newspaper ‘AKROPOLIS’ dated 23 August 1962:
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"A harrowing tragedy occurred yesterday afternoon on the outskirts of Aegion, when 8,000 tonnes of earth slid down from a height of 60 metres, burying a group of villagers who were volunteering to help build a public road . Five villagers were killed and five others injured. When the photograph showing the site of the massive landslide was taken, not all of the bodies had yet been recovered. The vehicle pictured was also swept up by the torrent of earth and destroyed. ... This terrible accident ... occurred under the following circumstances: In the coastal village of Longos near Aegion, which attracts many tourists in the summer, work has been underway for three days – with the residents carrying out the work and with financial support from the Prefecture of Achaia – to construct the only access road to the village. A group of residents from Longos had been working since early yesterday morning in a quarry near the bridge over the Meganitos River to extract the gravel needed for the road’s construction, which was to be transported by tipper lorry. The group consisted of the municipal secretary of the municipality of Longos, Panagiotis A. Bouloubasis ..., Nikolaos Birbilis ..., Nikolaos A. Markouras ..., Christos D. Moukas ..., Christos Tsaousis ..., Antonis T. Tsamtsouris ..., Dimitrios Alexakis ..., Panagiotis Chr. Sotiropoulos ..., Antonios G. Stefos ... and Pavlos Z. Rogalas. Of those mentioned above, the first five met a tragic death beneath the masses of earth, whilst the other five were injured. Among those miraculously rescued was Panagiotis Sotiropoulos, who describes the accident as follows: “I was working in the quarry in a hollow, and the top of the hill was literally hanging over us. … Suddenly and completely out of the blue, we saw the top of the hill rolling down with a demonic roar. Before we could get to safety, massive waves of scree and earth reached us; those closest by were buried under tonnes of earth, whilst those who were a little further away were hit by fewer rocks and earth. ...” At around 4 o’clock in the afternoon, the rescue services recovered two bodies, which were identified as the municipal secretary of the village of Longos, Panagiotis A. Bouloubasis, and the driver Birbilis from Psathopyrgos, who met a tragic death, trapped beneath the overturned tipper lorry and crushed by a huge mass of earth. For the remaining unfortunate villagers, there is no hope of rescue ..."
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