Terrible toll of Greek wildfires
Terrified tourists and locals found themselves trapped when devastating wildfires broke out in Greece recently
THEY could hear the crackle of the hungry flames behind them and feel the heat of the monster inferno on their backs. All they wanted to do was run to escape the wall of fire which was licking at their heels, but as they stared ahead an awful realisation dawned on them: there was nowhere to go.
In the panic and smoky chaos they discovered a big fence blocking their path to the sea. So with the fire getting closer by the second the 26 trapped people did the only thing they could do: they hugged each other.
When their charred bodies were found almost every one of them was locked in an embrace. Among them were mothers clinging protectively to their children – one final act of love as they waited helplessly for the flames to engulf them.
This was just one of the many heartrending sights that rescuers encountered recently as Greece tried to pick up the pieces following a series of devastating fires which claimed the lives of more than 90 people, leaving hundreds injured and scores more missing.
With whole villages practically wiped off the map, cars completely gutted and pavements turned into carpets of ash, it
looked like a war zone.
“I saw dead people. I saw at least 300 cars burnt. I saw the burnt houses,” says Evangelos Bournos, mayor of the Rafina-Pikermi municipality, who also lost his home in the fires, the worst in living memory.
When more than 15 fires broke out across the area in a single day, fanned by gale-force winds of more than 120km/h, firefighters just weren’t equipped to deal with them. As the blazes spread rapidly down the mountains into packed tourist areas, scenes of chaos ensued.
The idyllic seaside resort town of Mati, about 30km from the capital, Athens, was the hardest hit, forcing residents and tourists to abandon buildings and flee for cover as the flames devoured everything in their path.
As terrified people tried to escape in their cars they became stuck in a traffic gridlock and were forced to abandon their vehicles and sprint to the sea.
But as they swam out into the ocean to escape the suffocating smoke they became disorientated, losing sight of the shore as they were swept along by the wind and strong currents.
“It’s terrible to see the person next to you drowning and not being able to help him,” says Nikos Stavrinidis, a resident of the area who waded into the sea with his wife and six friends.
For two hours they treaded water praying for help to arrive. But by the time an Egyptian fishing boat picked them up two of his friends – a woman and her son – had drowned.
In the rescue operation hundreds of people were plucked from the sea by a flotilla of boats or picked up from beaches which were cut off by the fire.
Many of those rescued had nowhere to go and had to be ferried off to neighbouring towns to be put up in hotels. According to media reports an estimated 1 500 homes were damaged, many of them beyond repair.
Maria Dionysioti (67) was one of the many left homeless – but that’s the least of her worries. She now has to try to come to terms with the pain of losing her infant grandson, two of her cousins and their children. The same fire also left her daughter, Margarita, in hospital fighting for her life.
“The pain, the pain . . . We all have pain – but no one will ever know this,” she says. “The daughter of my cousin, Grigoris, jumped off a cliff. My other cousin, Michalis, perished in his car with his wife and daughter. Several members of my [extended] family are missing. You tell me: are there words to convey this? Can the human soul take in such things?”
A newly married Irishman is also among the dead. Brian O’Callaghan-Westropp from Dublin was on honeymoon when the flames engulfed the resort where he and his new wife, Zoe Holohan, were staying. They were separated as they tried to escape the flames.
As the government declared the region a disaster area it faced mounting criticism of its handling of the rescue operation.
“We were left to burn like mice,” one woman complained. “There was no coordination. Nobody gave us any directions, people were burning in their cars three metres from the sea as they were trying to flee.”
She’s traumatised after having been separated from her children and spending several hours in the sea as the town burned.
“We were in the sea, we were burning in the sea, people were fainting around us,” she recalls. “I was screaming trying to find my children. There are tens of stories like this. There was no reason for us to burn.”