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Greece swelters, fights 99 fires
26/07/2007 10:01 - (SA)
Athens - Two people were killed and firefighters continued to battle at least 15 large forest fires across the country on Thursday as officials declared a state of emergency in central Greece and on the holiday island of Kefallonia.
Rescue efforts were carried out throughout the night by helicopters to rescue hundreds of residents from villages in the Peloponnese in central Greece and water dropping planes began extinguishing fires at the crack of dawn.
Two elderly people were killed in a fire and another person was seriously injured in central Greece, where a blaze destroyed dozens of homes, churches, schools and thousands of acres of farmland outside the town of Aegio and at least 40 other nearby villages.
At least one other person was reported missing and rescue workers were searching abandoned and burned homes for any signs of life.
One after another, rescue helicopters tried to airlift stranded residents throughout the night, many of them in shock as they watched their homes, farmland and livestock go up in flames.
There is nothing left
"Everything is burned, olive trees, vineyards and livestock - there is nothing left," said one man near the town of Aegio.
The main highway connecting Athens to the western Peloponnese remained closed to traffic on Thursday and electricity and water were reportedly cut off to dozens of towns and villages in southern Greece due to the raging fires.
Hundreds of tourists, residents, monks and children from nearby camps from the northern Peloponnese spent the night on beaches in an attempt to seek shelter from the approaching flames and smoke.
Firefighters were battling to contain 99 fires that had broken out across the country in the last 24 hours, according to Fire Service Yiannis Stamoulis.
Dry weather conditions and record-high temperatures have caused more than 2 000 forest fires since the beginning of June. Forest rangers have been placed on 24-hour fire patrols for the rest of the summer.
Scorching temperatures contributed to the deaths of two people on Wednesday and sent hundreds of others to hospital as temperatures soared to 45°C in some areas. - Sapa-dpa
- SAPA
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