Twin blazes near Athens turn deadly
Hundreds of people race to beaches to be evacuated
The worst Greek forest fires in a decade have killed at least 24 people near Athens while more than 100 others were injured.
Gale-fanned bushfires on either side of Athens raged through holiday resorts near the capital, leaving lines of cars torched, charred farms and forests. Hundreds of people raced to beaches to be evacuated by navy vessels, yachts and fishing boats.
Winds reached 80km/h as authorities deployed the country’s entire fleet of water-dropping planes and helicopters to give tourists time to escape.
Military drones remained in the air in the high winds to help officials direct more than 600 firefighters on the ground.
“We were unlucky. The wind changed and it came at us with such force that it razed the coastal area in minutes,” said Evangelos Bournous, Mayor of the port town of Rafina, a mainland port that serves Greek holiday islands.
Greece issued an urgent appeal for help to tackle fires which also raged uncontrolled in several places across the country, destroying homes, disrupting major transport links and sending people fleeing for their lives. Greece said it needed air and land assets from its European Union partners.
The dock area of Rafina became a makeshift hospital as paramedics checked survivors when they came off coast guard vessels and private boats. The operation continued through the night.
The death toll rose further after the coast guard counted four bodies recovered at sea, a short distance from the fires. Ambulance Service deputy
director Miltiadis Mylonas said the number of casualties was likely to rise as the more gutted homes and cars were checked.
“It took people by surprise and the events happened very fast. Also, the fires broke out on many fronts, so all these factors made the situation extremely difficult,” he said. “The task we face now is organising the identification of victims by members of their families.”
An ominous cloud of black-orange smoke hung over the Acropolis hill and the Parthenon temple in Athens.
The fire posed no immediate threat to Greece’s famed ancient monuments, but as it raged inland children’s’ summer camps and holiday homes were hastily abandoned. Fleeing drivers clogged highways into the capital, hampering the firefighting effort, and flecks of ash swirled onto central Athens.
It was the deadliest fire season to hit Greece since more than 60 people were killed in 2007 when huge fires swept across the southern Peloponnese region.
“It’s a difficult night for Greece,” Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said after flying back to Athens from a trip to Bosnia that was cut short.
Authorities said Cyprus and Spain had offered assistance after the request for EU help was made.
Greek Fire Service officials issued public pleas for residents in fireaffected areas to comply with evacuation orders and not stay on in an effort trying to save their homes.
Rafina’s Mayor said he believed about 100 houses in that area had burned. The fire service was not able to confirm the figure.
The damage was severe in Mati village, 30km east of Athens, in the Rafina region. “Mati doesn’t even exist as a settlement anymore,” one woman told Greece’s Skai TV.
“I saw corpses, burned-out cars. I feel lucky to be alive.”
One of the youngest victims was thought to be a 6-month-old baby who died of smoke inhalation.
At Kineta, at least 220 firefighters were on the scene, while five waterdropping planes and seven helicopters helped to fight the blaze from the air. Reinforcements were sent in from across Greece.
The Athens-Corinth motorway, one of two road routes to the Peloponese Peninsula, was shut and train services were cancelled. Fire raged around the Saronicos Gulf, ravaging tracts of pine forest, and was visible for kilometres. Several other fires broke out across the country, including in northeastern Greece and the southern island of Crete, stretching Greece’s firefighting capabilities. It was not clear what ignited the fires.
Heavy rain is forecast across southern Greece tomorrow.