An explosive device went off in central Piraeus overnight Wednesday, demolishing the ground floor and smashing windows up to the second floor in an office building that houses several shipping companies.
Nobody was hurt, as the explosion took place outside office hours at about 01.15 local time (23.15 GMT), Greek media said citing police sources.
The explosive device was placed in a metal box at street level right outside the building’s entrance, which is flanked by a shoe shop and an interior decoration store.
Damage from the blast wave, however, caused damage to the facade of the building, which houses NorthStandard.
Other shipping-related firms listed in the same building are Estoril Navigation, Primerose Shipping and Tototheo Maritime.
“Nobody has been hurt and that’s the most important thing,” an employee at one of these firms told TradeWinds.
“There’s windows damaged up to the second floor,” the employee added.
Work is not going on in at least two of the firms that TradeWinds contacted.
Some employees, however, did manage to enter offices, especially on the floors above the damage and phones are working.
Home-made bomb explosions are frequent in Greece. Sometimes they are politically motivated, especially when state organisations or politicians’ homes and offices are targeted.
Other attacks are the result of criminal disputes.
No political or state institution is known to be housed in the building office on Piraeus’s Filonos Street targeted on Wednesday.
A similar attack, even though with far smaller power, was carried out against the same building in the summer of 2020. Its perpetrators have not been found.
