Gale force winds fanned wildfires raging through tourist towns near the Greek capital Athens, killing more than 81 people and injuring nearly 190, [some seriously] in the country’s deadliest fire season in decades. Twenty-six bodies of families with small children, friends and perhaps even strangers were found huddled together in a back yard in Mati after a last desperate effort to find an escape route. Scores more are still unaccounted for.
Mati, a small, quiet, coastal resort town in Southern Greece was wiped out. A wildfire destroyed it in a couple of hours. Kineta, Mati and other coastal towns packed with tourists in the popular resort area were devastated by more than 15 blazes on either side of Athens that burned ferociously through the night on Monday, July 23, destroying more than 1,000 homes. The fires descended on the resort towns packed with tourists so fast in the 40-degree (104 degrees Fahrenheit), Celsius temperature that people were trapped in their homes and cars. Suspicions of arson have been raised since all 15 fires broke out about the same time.
People were burned alive in their homes. Cars jammed in traffice, their drivers trying to escape the fire, melted from the intense heat, while their drivers were burned alive. Others tried to flee to the sea, some barely escaping with their lives.
“Winds reached 80 kilometres (50 miles) per hour as authorities deployed the country’s entire fleet of water-dropping planes and helicopters to give holidaymakers 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 sleepy mainland port that serves Greek holiday islands.
“The dock area became a makeshift hospital as paramedics checked survivors when they came off coast guard vessels and private boats. The operation continued through the night.”
“Mati doesn’t even exist as a settlement anymore,” one woman said. “I saw corpses, burnt-out cars. I feel lucky to be alive.”
“At daybreak on Tuesday, local time, Ambulance Service Deputy Director Miltiadis Mylonas said the number of casualties was likely to rise as 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.
“Fire raged around the Saronicos Gulf, ravaging tracts of pine forest, and was visible for kilometres. An ominous cloud of black-orange smoke hung over the Acropolis hill and the Parthenon temple in Athens on Monday afternoon, but the fire posed no immediate threat to Greece’s famed ancient monuments.
“As it raged inland where 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 in more than a decade. More than 75 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.
Showers that passed over Athens on Monday missed the two big fires at Rafina, 30 kilometres (18 miles) to the east, and the other at Kineta, 55 kilometres (34 miles) to the west. Heavy rain were forecast across southern Greece on Wednesday.
“There will soon be a sudden change in God’s dealings. The world in its perversity is being visited by casualties,—by floods, storms, fires, earthquakes, famines, wars, and bloodshed. The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power; yet He will not at all acquit the wicked… O that men would understand that God refuses to be wearied out with the world’s perversity, and still holds out the hope of forgiveness even to the most undeserving! But His forbearance will not always continue. Who is prepared for the sudden change that will take place in God’s dealing with sinful men? Who will be prepared to escape the punishment that will certainly fall upon transgressors?” Fundamentals of Education, page 356.
Source References
-
‘We were unlucky’: Greece asks for help as twin wildfires kill dozens [1]
-
‘A BIBLICAL DISASTER’ Greece wildfires – 74 dead, 150 injured and ‘eight missing’ as apocalyptic wildfires near Athens burn families alive in their cars [2]
-
Greece wildfires: Death toll hits 80 as anti-terror unit launches investigation [3]