Young Irish couple ‘ran for their lives’ as wildfires raged in Greece
‘Serious signs’ it was arson attack
A YOUNG Irish couple caught up in the Greek wildfires have told how they ran for their lives to escape the inferno.
Chloe Sugrue (19), from Cahersiveen, Co Kerry, and boyfriend Seán Davis (21), from Finglas, Dublin, were enjoying their first holiday together as a couple when they were caught up in the disaster.
The couple were on their second day in the resort of Mati, Greece, when the wildfires began to rage in the mountains above the Mati Hotel, where they were staying.
At least 83 people are confirmed to have died in the tragedy as the search for the missing continues.
Sorrow has turned to anger in the country as desperate relatives of those missing appeared on television to plead for help.
Some blamed authorities for the disaster, the country’s deadliest blaze in decades, as one official suggested the residents of Mati should have been evacuated earlier.
“This shouldn’t have happened, people perished for no reason,” a woman in tears shouted at Defence Minister Panos Kammenos as he visited the village and nearby fire-ravaged areas. “You left us at God’s mercy.”
Last night Citizen Protection Minister Nikos Toskas said that there are “serious indications” the blaze was caused by arson.
Ms Sugrue told the Irish Independent how initially people thought it was not that serious but it soon became apparent it was a “matter of life or death”.
“It was about 3pm we saw smoke, we thought nothing of it at first – just that it was a bit of a gorse fire up in the mountains.
“We went about our day, then at 5.30pm we decided to go for dinner up a bit from the hotel and the staff said the restaurant wasn’t open.
“We walked outside and there were people screaming everywhere and panicking.
“We went back to the hotel, asked the manager what had happened. She said ‘there’s a fire up in the mountain’.
“The staff were all panicking as their families were up there in the mountain.
“They told us to stay in the hotel but then 10 minutes later they told us to get out of the hotel, to get onto the beach.
“The fire was coming from the mountain, we heard a big bang, so we ran to the beach – we ran for our lives to the water.
“There were people running around us. It was very scary.
“The fire was fast approaching our hotel. We were wondering how were we going to make it.
“Our holiday went from the happiest time of our lives to ‘how are we going to survive this, how are we going to get home?’” she said.
Ms Sugrue, who is studying childcare at Marino College in Dublin, and Mr Davis, a pharmaceutical science student at DCU, fled the flames and sat on a bench on the beach surrounded by distraught families, with many adults and children weeping.
The young couple had only around 20pc battery power on their mobile phones and watched in terror as the fire travelled toward their hotel, destroying an apartment block beside it.
While the fire raged round the Hotel Mati, it was not damaged and they managed to phone home to let their families know they were alright.
But the couple, along with many others on the beach, suffered smoke inhalation as the flames came closer.
“We were on the beach from around 6pm until 1am and the fire was all round our hotel,” said Ms Sugrue, who spoke about the incident on the ‘News at One’ on RTÉ Radio 1 yesterday.
“It came to 2am and the emergency services said the route was clear and we could go back to the hotel and find out what we could do next,” she said.
“We know we are so lucky to be alive,” she added.
Meanwhile, outside the coroner’s service in Athens the mood was grim as people arrived to help identify their loved ones and submit evidence.
“It will be very painful, we will then have the identification... the funerals, more pain,” said Evangelos Bournous, the mayor of Rafina-Pikermi, an area close to Mati.