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'I feel deep grief for our dead'
25/08/2007 22:00 - (SA)
Petros Giannakouris
Zaharo, Greece - The worst wildfires Greece has seen in decades swept uncontrolled across the country on Saturday, killing at least 47 people, and the country faced a second night of devastation with reports of people trapped by wind-driven flames and dozens of villages burning.
Seventy new fires broke out during the day, officials said, while many still burned from the day before and volunteers joined overstretched firefighters in the battle to save lives and homes.
Just as on Friday night, panicked residents trapped by the flames telephoned television and radio stations appealing for help.
Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis said arson was suspected. Some 170 fires have broken out since Friday morning. He declared a nationwide state of emergency and vowed to pursue those responsible.
A 65-year-old man was arrested and charged with arson and multiple counts of homicide in a fire that killed six people in Areopolis, a town in the southern Peloponnese, said fire department spokesperson Nikos Diamandis.
"So many fires breaking out simultaneously in so many parts of the country cannot be a coincidence," Karamanlis said a nationally televised address. "The state will do everything it can to find those responsible and punish them."
Strong winds drove the flames across a landscape parched by a heatwave, and blew smoke and ashes from the burning island of Evia towards Athens, where the sun was obscured and ashes rained down on the capital for hours.
More feared dead
The fires were so severe that authorities said they could not yet provide an estimate of how much damage they had caused, nor what expanse of land had been burned.
The fire department reported 47 people had been killed.
The deadliest fire was in the western Peloponnese region of southern Greece, where at least 38 people were killed in mountain villages near the town Zaharo, the fire department said. A massive fire whipped by strong winds continued to burn out of control.
Nine of those killed near Zaharo - including three firefighters - were killed after a car crashed into a fire truck and led to a pile up as people tried to flee the area, the fire department said.
Zaharo Mayor Pantazis Chronopoulos said he feared more people could be dead.
"We still have missing who haven't been found. We have about 10 missing," he said, adding that soldiers had begun checking burnt houses in the area on Saturday afternoon to see if anyone had been trapped inside.
In the village of Makistos, firefighters searching through charred houses after daybreak found 10 bodies the fire department said. They were believed to include a mother and her four children reported missing during the night.
Appeal for help
"I feel deep grief for our dead," Karamanlis said. "I feel deep pain for the mother who perished in the flames with her arms round her children. I feel anger - the same that you feel.
Hot, dry winds gusting to gale force were expected to abate in the evening. The winds frequently prevented firefighting planes from taking off, leaving mainly ground forces to fight the flames in the southern Peloponnese, occasionally helped by helicopters.
Throughout Friday night and into Saturday, desperate villagers and local mayors called television and radio stations to plead for help. The military sent 500 soldiers and several helicopters to join the firefighting.
A three-day heatwave has left forests and shrubland parched. Fires have raged from the western Ionian islands to Ioannina in northwest Greece, and down to the south.
Authorities evacuated nuns from a convent and closed off a major highway on Mount Ymittos near Athens as flames approached the capital's eastern outskirts, damaging buildings in the Papagou suburb, the fire department said. Firemen assisted by water-dropping aircraft and hundreds of volunteers brought the blaze under partial control. No injuries were reported.
A fire on the island of Evia north of the capital grew overnight and several villages were being evacuated, Diamandis said.
Greece appealed for help from European Union countries. France, Germany, Spain, Italy and non EU-member Norway were sending firefighting aircraft, and Cyprus offered firefighters and trucks.
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