Forest fires in Greece: cars melt while villages are stricken from the map

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Some inhabitants of Mati, near Athens, who were trying to escape on foot or in their car, were trapped by the advancing fire, dying while they were fleeing. Survivors spoke of seeing corpses on the sides of the road, then were carefully transferred into bright yellow bags and carried away.

The last victim was an 84-year-old man who succumbed to his burns in a hospital on Wednesday. according to the Greek Ministry of Health.

Twenty-six people died in a field a few meters from the sea, where many fled to find shelter from the fire. "It seems that some of them, the deceased, knew each other because they had been found in groups of three and four," said Vbadilis Andriopoulos, a Red Cross rescuer. "They could be friends or relatives or families who tried to protect themselves by hugging each other."

Christiana Fragkou, owner of the land where these 26 bodies were found, told CNN on Wednesday that she saved several people by showing them

"Unfortunately, there were many people who were trapped and of course they do not know it, they do not know this area well … They Fragkou says that she and her family fled to the rocky coast where they were finally rescued by fishermen and taken away at the nearby port of Rafina.

A woman searches for her dog after the Mati fire, near the Greek capital Athens

Members of a rescue team carry a wounded woman to Mati on Wednesday.

The twin girls are brought disappeared

The number of deaths, currently at 80, is expected to increase as firefighters and members of the armed forces continue to search cars and apartment buildings. area for those who chose not to leave, or left it too late.

The Greek Fire Department said Wednesday that it had received dozens of appeals from relatives and friends of the missing. Photos of some of them, including a young boy, have been posted on a missing persons website in the hope that they can be found.

Two of the missing are Sofia and Vasiliki Philippopoulos, 9, according to their father Yiannis. Speaking Tuesday on Greek television, he said that he and his mother had searched for their daughters in hospitals, police stations and even a morgue before seeing television pictures of girls disembarking from a boat with a number of other survivors

He learned that Sofia and Vasiliki, or their grandparents, were with the girls earlier in the day.

Greek coastguards confirmed Tuesday at CNN's Greek affiliate that they had no record of the whereabouts of the twins.

Nearly 190 people were injured in fires around the Attica region – the worst to have hit Greece in decades – including 23 children, according to the Civil Protection Agency. Dozens are still in the hospital, with about 10 in critical condition

An aerial view shows houses burned to Mati.

A member of a rescue team The mercenary searches in a burned house in Mati on Wednesday

Mati 'disappeared & # 39;

More than 15 fires broke out on three different fronts in this part of southern Greece on Monday afternoon, according to government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos, who described the firefighters' challenge as "unprecedented ".

was deployed on Monday to combat fires in eastern Attica (Mati region) and Kineta, in western Attica, where two fires were still active Wednesday morning.

Gusts of wind up to 120 km / h. Attica over the past eight summers – fanned the fla mies, which were fed more by temperatures up to 37 ° C (99 ° F) and low humidity, creating the "ideal conditions" for a fire to occur. spread quickly, according to the National Observatory of Athens (NCAA).

Twelve port vessels were mobilized with a naval frigate, two combat helicopters and three helicopters, said Tzanakopoulos, adding that 30 private ships were also used in the rescue mission. Tourists and locals stranded on Mati Beach were taken by boat to the nearby port city of Rafina, where buses transported them to hotels, Tzanakopoulos said.

Following a call for help, several countries of the European Union, including Cyprus, Italy, Spain and Bulgaria, offered badistance in the form of Firefighters, trucks and paramedics. , is currently in Athens to badist the Greek authorities.

Addressing Amna News on Tuesday, Rafina-Pikermi Mayor Evangelos Bournos said that his house had been destroyed by fire and that his family had been forced to flee to the sea, according to the subsidiary Greek CNN. I saw dead people, I saw at least 300 cars burned, I saw the houses burned down, "he said, recalling Mati's scene. "We are trying to operate in another reality because two settlements, Mati and Kokkino Limanaki (just south of Mati), have disappeared, they have been lost on the map," Bournos said. . Bournos said: "This has changed the landscape, we are living another reality."

He praised the reaction of civilians, who were arriving en mbade at the emergency headquarters on Tuesday, bringing food, water, clothing and other necessities, called the government to act quickly to help survivors rebuild their lives before the winter: "They have nothing."

"As you can see, houses, cars, everything was destroyed by fire," he told CNN, gesturing to burnt fields. A fire-fighting helicopter throws water to extinguish the flames during a forest fire on Tuesday in Kineta village "data-src-mini =" // cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/ dam / badets / 180724141301-24-greece-wildfires-0724-small-169.jpg "data-src-xsmall =" // cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/badets/180724141301-24-greece-wildfires-0724 -medium-plus-169.jpg "data-src-small =" http://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/badets/180724141301-24-greece-wildfires-0724-large-169.jpg "data- src-medium = "// cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/badets/180724141301-24-greece-wildfires-0724-exlarge-169.jpg" data-src-large = "// cdn.cnn.com/ cnnnext / dam / badets / 180724141301-24-greece-wildfires-0724-super-169.jpg "data-src-full16x9 =" // cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/badets/180724141301-24-greece-wildfires -0724-full-169.jpg "data-src-mini1x1 =" // cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/badets/180724141301-24-greece-wildfires-0724-small-11.jpg "data-demand- load = "not-loaded" data-eq-pts = "mini: 0, xsmall: 221, small: 308, medium: 461, large: 781" src = "data: im age / gif; base64, R0lGODlhEAAJAJEAAAAAAP /////// wAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAQAAkAAAIKlI + py + 0Po5yUFQA7 "/>

The Supreme Court Orders an Investigation into Fires

Some residents have criticized the initial response of the Greek authorities.

Fragkou – who owns the land where 26 people perished – suggested that the response of the emergency services should have been better given the proximity of the homes in the capital.

"We are lacking in organization and we are not investing in prevention and that's all," Yannis Stratikopoulos of the Civil Protection Agency on Tuesday rejected suggestions that the Emergency response had been poorly coordinated

On Tuesday, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said He urged people to focus on fighting fires and helping the victims.

Evacuations in Sweden rage to the north of the Arctic Circle

"Now it's time to mobilize and fight," he said. "The fight to save what can be saved, the fight to defeat the fire, the fight to find the missing so that we do not cry anymore and we can soothe the pain of those affected."

Xeni Dimitriou ordered an investigation into the causes of the fire

The spokesman of the Tzanakopoulos government suggested on Tuesday that the Attica flames could have been deliberately fired and that Greece had asked for US drones to detect any "suspicious activity". On Tuesday, the Greek government approved 20 million euros (about 23 million dollars) to meet the immediate needs of people and cities affected by forest fires, said Tzanakopoulos

the Olympiacos and its owner, Evangelos Marinakis. euros (about $ 1.2 million) to help alleviate the suffering of people affected by forest fires, the club said Tuesday. They also open bank accounts for fans to donate.

Cars are stuck at the National Highway closed during the Kineta Forest Fire Monday

Heat Waves and Flooding

Much of Europe, including Greece, cooked under a huge ridge of high pressure that allows tropical heat to climb

Temperatures above 32˚C (90˚F) have spread to northern Scandinavia, setting records in Sweden, Finland and Norway for stations above polar Circle.

The result was an unprecedented string of forest fires in Sweden that last week prompted the country to seek help from other EU countries. The European Commission is also currently helping Latvia in Eastern Europe, where forest fires are on fire after weeks of high temperatures.

And Greece could soon face a crisis on another front. Bulgaria has warned its southern neighbors, Greece and Turkey, that they could face floods as heavy rains swell the Arda and Maritsa rivers flowing into these territories, Melissa Bell reported on Reuters Wednesday. and Saskya Vandoorne. Judith Vonberg wrote in London

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