– ‘There is no more money’ –
A banking source in Greece said only 40 percent of cash machines now had money in them.
A host of European governments including London and Paris advised citizens travelling to Greece to carry ample cash with them to cope with the unexpected.
In Athens, teacher Yiannis Grivas told AFP he had withdrawn his entire 940-euro salary on Friday so “I have enough to live on for a few weeks.”
He added: “I am not afraid of capital controls, I never take out more than 50 euros a day anyway.”
In the capital’s upscale Kolonaki area, 32-year-old Anna tried in vain to find a working cash machine.
“There is no more money,” she said, adding that she hoped her countrymen would vote in the referendum “to stay in the eurozone and the European Union” and that “the nightmare will finally end”.
Since Friday night alone, 1.3 billion euros ($1.45 billion) have been withdrawn from the Greek banking system, according to the head of the bank workers’ union Stavros Koukos.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls warned of a “real risk” of Greece leaving the eurozone if it Greeks vote against the EU’s bailout proposals in the planned referendum.
But Tsipras, whose Syriza party came to power in January on an anti-austerity platform, has advised voters against backing a deal he said spelled further “humiliation” for a country that has endured five years of recession, turmoil and skyrocketing unemployment.
Unless creditors heed Tsipras’s renewed request for a bailout extension, Greece’s rescue plan will formally expire on Tuesday. This will almost certainly mean Greece will default on more than 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) due to the IMF that same day.
