Greece counts cost of deadliest wildfires in memory
ATHENS: Family members were helping on Thursday to identify the bodies of the 82 people killed in Greece’s worst ever wildfires as anger mounted over how authorities could have let the disaster happen.
Firefighters were still dealing with pockets of flames from the unprecedented outbreak around Athens as the government announced a raft of measures to compensate those affected.
An 82nd person was pronounced dead on Thursday by a fire service spokeswoman, without specifying whether they were found by rescuers or died in hospital.
The fires, which broke out on Monday, struck coastal villages popular with holidaymakers and burned with such ferocity that most people fled to the safety of the sea with just the clothes on their backs.
Survivors spoke of harrowing scenes including entire families burned alive in their homes.
One resident of Mati, the village worst affected, described it as “a night of hell”.
An emergency services spokesman said on Thursday that a blaze near Kineta, 25 kilometres west of Athens, was largely being managed, though it was still working to extinguish pockets of flames.
There was still no official word on the number of people missing after the catastrophe, but the death toll of 82 already makes this Europe’s deadliest fire outbreak this century.
Among those killed was a newly married Irishman who had been on honeymoon in Mati when his car was caught in the wildfires, British media said. The fire service said firefighters were still searching for people reported missing by their relatives, while public ERT television said around 30 bodies had been formally identified.
The head of Greece’s legal-medical services Nikos Karakoukis said there were children among the remains still awaiting identification.
Family members of those missing were invited to provide DNA samples to help the process, which scientists hope to finish by Saturday, Karakoukis told the ANA news agency.
One legal official told ANA that the task was “huge, with many carbonised bodies, which complicates the procedure.” A website set up by residents lists 27 people still unaccounted for, including a pair of nine-year-old twin girls.
The swiftly moving flames on Monday evening overtook some terrified residents and tourists in their homes as well some others trying to flee in cars or on foot. AFP photographers saw the burnt bodies of people and dogs.
Some 187 people were hospitalised, with 71 still being treated as of Wednesday evening, including almost a dozen children, most of whom were in a “serious condition”, the fire services said.