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Heartbreak: Funeral begins for the victims of the fires of Greece
ATHENS – Funeral of the victims of the deadly forest fires in Greece began Saturday with the burial of an elderly priest who s & # b; He was drowned while he was seeking safety in the flames Mati
Hundreds of people attended the funeral of Father Spyridon Papapostolou in his parish of Halandri, a northern suburb of Athens, the Greek capital.
Papapostolou, his wife and daughter, were among the hundreds who went into the water to protect themselves. fast flames. But the 83-year-old clerk fainted and drowned, while his wife and daughter survived.
"Father Spyridon was certainly ready for this trip, but not that way, he did not deserve it," his niece, Ifigenia Christodoulou, told The Associated Press. "I hope he's praying for all of us up there, as he has done all these years."
Dimitra Bavavea directed his anger at the "unfair" way that so many people – 86 – had lost their lives. According to the International Disaster Database managed by the Center for Disaster Epidemiology Research in Brussels, fire has been the deadliest in Europe since 1900.
"My sadness is great, like my rage for those who let people burn to death so unfairly, "she said." I hope those who died are in heaven and thank you Father Spyridon for all you we have offered. "
The Greek Minister of Public Order continued to defend the authorities' response to Monday's fire Minister Nikos Toskas told public radio ERT that he was impossible to evacuate the 15,000 people within 90 minutes as Monday's fire raged in the region
More sad, the bodies of twin girls that their father originally believed had survived were identified, Private investigator George Tsoukalis told the AP He said that Sophia and Vasiliki Philipopoulos, two nine-year-old twins, were found in the arms of their grandparents, who also died in the fire.
A day after the fire, Yiannis Philipopoulos made a public appeal to find his missing daughters. , saying that he had spotted them alive in TV reports among a group of people coming out of a fishing boat that had rescued them.
The tragic death of twins was also confirmed by Smile of the Child, an independent child protection agency that also confirmed the death of 13-year-old Dimitris Alexopoulos whose body was among those found by firefighters.
Coroner Nikolaos Kalogrias told the AP that the identification of the fire continues at a steady pace. The Greek authorities did not report the exact number of missing persons.
Toskas said the fire brigade teams have done everything to save as many lives as possible, but that the town planning mistakes of the last 60 years have created Toskas said that more than half of the buildings in the area from Mati, 30 kilometers (19 miles) east of Athens, were built without a permit. In addition, some beaches have been fenced off, preventing people fleeing the flames from reaching the water.
He said that the government's priority now is to take steps to ensure that something like this does not happen again.
Toskas does not seem to heed the appeal of his leader, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, to follow his example by accepting political responsibility for the disaster.
But the inhabitants of the disaster-stricken resort of Mati were not impressed by Tsipras's statement
"I want to know" I accept political responsibility "means … Will he went to prison? Vissarion Pantelides, 79, said Saturday.
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