Blame game over deadly Greek wildfires
Opposition rejects government’s suggestion that the blazes were started deliberately
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Grief and shock over Greece’s deadliest wildfires were clouded yesterday by a bitter debate over who was to blame, as the opposition rejected the government’s suggestion that the blazes were started deliberately.
Deputy Citizen Protection Minister Nikos Toskas on Thursday suggested there were “serious” signs that the worst of the fires, which killed scores this week east of Athens, was the result of arson.
Forensics experts pressed ahead yesterday with the difficult task of identifying the bodies of the 82 people who perished in the catastrophe.
An official in the identification effort told Greek radio that most of the bodies were completely carbonised, meaning the task will likely take several more days to complete.
Amid public anger over the One person was killed in a rapidly moving wildfire that sent residents fleeing from a northern California city where homes and businesses burnt and power was cut yesterday, fire officials said.
A bulldozer operator was killed in the so-called Carr Fire, a blaze in Shasta County that has tripled in size in the last two days to 28,000 acres, the state’s forestry and fire protection department (Cal Fire) said. The blaze moved east from the communities of Whiskeytown and Shasta and crossed the Sacramento River and now threatens hundreds of homes on west side of the city of Redding. Cal Fire said it ignited on Monday by the mechanical failure of a vehicle.
“The fire is moving so fast that law enforcement is doing evacuations as fast as we can. There have been some injuries to civilians and firefighters,” California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Scott McLean told the newspaper. government’s handling of the aftermath, Toskas told reporters on Thursday that “a serious piece of information has led to us opening an investigation” into possible “criminal acts”.
But the government has come in for strong criticism over its response to the disaster despite a 40-million-euro relief fund for those affected.
Defence Minister Panos Kammenos was heckled on Thursday as he visited the coastal region of Mati, where most of the fatalities occurred. “You left us to God’s mercy, there’s nothing shouted one resident.
But Kammenos went on the counter-attack, saying that illegal construction in the past was also to blame for the disaster.
The “majority” of houses on the coast had been built without the proper licences, he said.
Experts said a mix of poor urban planning and a lack of proper access routes and the construction of too many buildings next to combustible forest areas, contributed to what were Europe’s worst wildfires this century. left,”
The mayor of Rafina-Pikermi, Evangelos Bournos. said that the emergency responders had inadvertently trapped residents by closing a main road near the fires.
“We are all responsible, the government, the emergency services, and citizens,” he said.
The opposition New Democracy party reacted stingingly to Toskas’ claim that the fires were the result of criminal acts. “This deplorable spectacle of rejecting any responsibility can only provoke anger,” it said in a statement.
Evangelos Bournos | Mayor, Rafina-Pikermi