Wildfire carnage

Greece mourns loss of 50 lives with dozens injured

AT least 50 people have died as a wildfire sweeps through a small resort town near Athens.

Families with children have been trapped behind walls of smoke and flames as they tried to flee to the beach.

The fire in Mati was still burning yesterday as hundreds of people were rescued by passing boats but the blaze moved too fast for others.

A WILDFIRE has killed at least 50 people and injured dozens more as it swept through a small resort town near Athens, trapping families with children behind walls of smoke and flames as they tried to flee to the beach.

The fire in Mati was by far Greece’s worst since flames devastated the southern Peloponnese peninsula in August 2007, killing dozens.

It broke out late on Monday afternoon and was still burning in some areas yesterday.

People scrambled to the sea as the blaze closed in near the shore. Hundreds were rescued by passing boats but the fire moved too fast for others.

“I was briefed by a rescuer that he saw the shocking picture of 26 people tightly huddled in a field some 30 metres from the beach,” Nikos Economopoulos, head of Greece’s Red Cross, told Skai TV.

“They had tried to find an escape route but unfortunately these people and their kids didn’t make it in time,” he said.

A Reuters photographer saw at least four dead on a road clogged with cars heading to a nearby beach and heard reports of several more casualties.

“Residents and visitors in the area did not escape in time even though they were a few metres from the sea,” fire brigade spokeswoman Stavroula Maliri said.

Mati is in the eastern Rafina region, a popular spot for Greek holiday-makers, particularly pensioners and children at camps, 29km east of the capital. The 26 deaths came on top of the more than 20 reported by government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos earlier yesterday.

One of the youngest victims was thought to be a six-monthold baby who died of smoke inhalation, officials said. Of the 156 people injured, 11 were in intensive care, they added.

The coastguard said four more bodies were retrieved from the sea. In total, coastguard and other vessels rescued 696 people who had fled to beaches. Boats plucked another 19 people alive from the water.

“It is a difficult night for Greece,” said Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

Greece issued an urgent appeal for help to tackle fires that raged out of control in several places across the country, destroying homes and disrupting major transport links.

Cyprus and Spain offered assistance and authorities said they would use an unmanned drone from the United States to monitor and track any suspicious activity.

Tsipras and Greek officials have expressed misgivings at the fact that several major fires broke out at the same time.

Wildfires are not uncommon in Greece, and a relatively dry winter helped create the current tinderbox conditions. It was not immediately clear what ignited the fires.

A hillside of homes was gutted by flames east of Athens. A mayor said he saw at least 100 homes and 200 vehicles burning.