Fires tore through parched forests and swallowed villages across Greece, bearing down on villages near Ancient Olympia in the south a day after the government declared a nationwide state of emergency. More than 50 people were dead.
The worst infernos were concentrated in the mountains of the Peloponnese in southern Greece and on the island of Evia north of Athens.
Early on Sunday, the flames approached villages a few kilometres from Ancient Olympia and the town of Pyrgos. Desperate residents and officials appeared on television to appeal for help.
”We’re going to burn alive here,” one woman told Greek television from the village of Lambeti. She said residents were using garden hoses in a desperate attempt to save their homes.
Church bells rang out in the village of Kolyri near Ancient Olympia as panicked residents tried to gather their belongings and flee through the night, said one man who called the television station.
After first light, firefighting planes began dropping water in the area, and Ancient Olympia mayor Giorgos Aidonis said the ancient site was no longer in imminent peril. ”We are among the lucky,” he said. ”Ancient Olympia is not in danger at the moment.”
But other areas were still being consumed by flames, with much of the Peloponnese ablaze and one front bearing down a mountain slope towards the southern city of Kalamata.
On Saturday, new fronts had emerged as dozens of fresh fires broke out — including some blamed on arson. Another blaze broke out in the area of Kalyvia, between Athens and the ancient site of Sounion to the south.
Reinforcements
Nearly 1 000 soldiers and military helicopters reinforced firefighters stretched to the limit by Greece’s worst summer of wildfires. In the most ravaged area — a string of mountain villages in southern Greece — rescue crews picked through a grim aftermath that spoke of last-minute desperation as the fires closed in.
Dozens of charred bodies were found across fields, homes, along roads and in cars, including the remains of a mother hugging her four children.
By sea and by land, authorities evacuated hundreds of people trapped by the flames.
Senior Health Ministry official Panagiotis Efstathiou said on Saturday that the bodies of 49 people who died because of the fires had been taken to hospitals. The death toll rose to 51 on Sunday morning after the discovery of two more bodies.
There were fears the toll could increase as rescue crews searched recently burned areas.
At least 12 countries were sending reinforcements for Greece’s overstretched firefighters.
Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis implied arson was the cause of the blazes. ”So many fires breaking out simultaneously in so many parts of the country cannot be a coincidence,” he said in a nationally televised address on Saturday. ”The state will do everything it can to find those responsible and punish them.”
A 65-year-old man was arrested and charged with arson and multiple counts of homicide in a fire that killed six people in Areopolis, a town in the southern Peloponnese, said fire-department spokesperson Nikos Diamandis. Separately, two youths were arrested on suspicion of arson in the northern city of Kavala, he said. Their parents will also face charges.
Hospitals across Greece were on alert, and the Health Ministry sent tents for 1 500 people to the south to house those made homeless.
Trapped
The worst-affected region was around the town of Zaharo, south of Ancient Olympia in the western Peloponnese. Thick smoke, which blocked out the intense summer sun, could be seen from more than 95km away. The blaze broke out on Friday afternoon and quickly engulfed villages, trapping dozens of people and killing at least 39.
Scores of people were treated in hospitals for burns and breathing problems.
”I feel deep grief for our dead,” Karamanlis said in his address. ”I feel deep pain for the mother who perished in the flames with her arms round her children. I feel anger — the same that you feel.”
Across southern Greece, villages, hotels and resorts were being evacuated. In the south, a fire bore down on the town of Kalamata.
North of Athens on the island of Evia, a massive fire burned across hillsides and through villages. Strong winds blowing with gale-force gusts on Saturday blew thick smoke southwards into Athens, turning the sky red over the capital and raining ashes down into the city centre.
Police and coast guards used patrol boats to evacuate 300 people from the island’s town of Aliveri and 40 from the nearby town of Styra. About 300 tourists, mainly from France, were evacuated from local hotels, Greek-French architect Xavier Pathoulas said.
Reduced winds and a slight dip in temperatures were forecast for Sunday.
The fires have been so severe that authorities said they could not yet provide an estimate of how much damage they had caused, nor what expanse of land had been burned. — Sapa-AP
Associated Press writers Elena Becatoros and Nicholas Paphitis in Athens contributed to this report