More than 200 houses have been completely destroyed by the devastating wildfires that ripped through a coastal town east of Athens this week killing at least 80 people, according to data collected by engineers from the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport who have started recording the damage to buildings.
Crews dispatched in Rafina, Mati and Neos Voutzas have so far checked 720 homes and determined that 211 of them are uninhabitable, along with three stores and eight warehouses. Another 234 houses are badly damaged and will need repairs.
More than 125 burned out cars have been removed by crews to free the streets in Mati.
The mayor of Rafina and Pikermi, Vangelis Bournous, estimated that 50 percent of the town of Kokkino Limanaki has been charred and 98 percent of Mati – the town where most fatalities were recorded.
In a separate fire still raging in Kineta, a beach town west of Athens, 139 homes have been destroyed by the flames but are expected to increase to about 200, according to Megara mayor Grigoris Stamoulis.
Dried pools of molten aluminum dot the charred roads of a small Greek village ravaged by fire this week. The flames were so hot that cars in their path began to melt, metal dripping to the ground and tires turned to liquid rubber.
Some residents of Mati, near Athens, who tried to escape on foot or in their cars were trapped by the advancing fire, dying as they fled. Survivors spoke of seeing dead bodies on the sides of the road, later transferred carefully into bright yellow body bags and carried away.
The latest victim was an 84-year-old man who succumbed to his burns in a hospital on Wednesday, according to the Greek Health Ministry.
Greek news service Ekathimerini says that when the death toll looks like it will exceed 100, when the extent of the disaster is impossible to fathom, when the inadequacy of the state machine reveals itself in such a tragic way, it is clear that someone carries the political responsibility.
The example of Portugal’s Interior Minister Constanca Urbano de Sousa, who resigned after the disastrous forest fires in her country last November, is fresh in our minds.
The resignation of at least one Greek minister will demonstrate that the government respects the victims of this disaster.
An “unspeakable tragedy,” as Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras described it, demands political catharsis.
Greek authorities are on high alert to face possible flooding that may hit areas of greater Attica, including the resorts that were devastated by Monday’s wildfire.
On Wednesday, the Greek meteorological service issued an emergency warning forecasting heavy rains and storms affecting parts of Greece, including the greater Athens area.
A similar weather pattern with hailstorms and very strong winds in places is also forecast for Thursday.
Exceptional conditions with gusts of wind that reached record speeds of up to 120 km per hour (75mph) were at least partly to blame for the devastation inflicted by the fires in Attica, a leading Greek scientist said.
Manolis Pleionis,the head of the National Observatory of Athens said that “the high wind gust speeds certainly created the conditions for its rapid advance and spread.”
“We measured the gusts in the wider area and what we saw when we analysed the data was that there were truly high wind gust speeds. In some of our stations, at the Isthmus, Kaparelli in Viotia, on Parnitha and Penteli, in Ano Liosia and in Neos Kosmos these gusts were the highest that have been recorded in eight years that we have weather stations in these areas,” Pleionis said in an interview with the Athens News Agency.
Flags at the European Commission headquarters have been flying at half mast since Wednesday, in solidarity with the victims of the deadly fires in Greece.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who spoke with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and President of the Republic Prokopios Pavlopoulos on Tuesday, said that the Commission will make every possible effort to help Greece and the Greeks.
European Council President Donald Tusk similarly stressed that Europe will stand by Greece during these difficult hours.
European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Christos Stylianides is in Athens to liaise with Greek authorities and coordinate EU assistance in fighting Attica’s fires.
