The Scotsman : Hunt for arsonists as death toll rises to 60

Hunt for arsonists as death toll rises to 60

PETROS GIANNAKOURIS AND PAUL ANASTASI | August 27, 2007

UP TO half of mainland Greece was in flames yesterday with firefighters battling to save the ancient site of the Olympic games and a 2,500-year-old temple of Apollo from wildfires raging through the country.

The death toll rose to at least 58 after five people were killed on the island of Evia, north of Athens, but it was feared many more may have perished in fires so large and intense they were visible from space.

New fires also broke out faster than others could be brought under control.

Officials believe that arson was responsible for many of the blazes and several people had been arrested. The government also announced a reward of up to £500,000 for anyone providing information that would lead to the arrest of an arsonist.

By sea and by land, authorities evacuated hundreds of people trapped by flames in villages and hotels.

To date no major tourist resorts have been threatened and no British holidaymakers have been evacuated.

However, the popular island resorts of Rhodes, Crete, Corfu, Zakynthos, Kos and Santorini have put their firefighting services on alert.

In the early hours of the morning, church bells rang out the alarm in Kolyri and residents gathered their belongings and fled through the night.

They told how the blaze had covered 1¼ miles in just three minutes.

"It's hell everywhere," said resident Costas Ladas. "I've never seen anything like it."

The worst of Greece's fires - there were at least 42 major fronts - were concentrated in the mountains of the Peloponnese in southern Greece and on Evia.

But fires also broke out yesterday in the central region of Fthiotida, one of the few areas that had been unscathed, fire department spokesman Nikos Diamandis said.

"Fires are burning in more than half of the country," Mr Diamandis said. "This is definitely an unprecedented disaster for Greece."

More than 60 new fires broke out yesterday, although 40 of them were brought under control by last night.

A temporary drop in the high winds yesterday morning provided a brief respite, but they intensified later in the day and the body of a woman was found in the village of Platanos near the village of Olympia and the 2,800-year-old site where the ancient games were held.

The flames reached the edge of the ancient stadium, searing the grass and incinerating the trees on the hill above. Helicopters and aircraft dropped water and foam, covering the ruins. "Our target is for the fire not to enter ancient Olympia, not to destroy antiquities," Mr Diamandis said.

The Culture Ministry said "all necessary measures had been taken" to save the site, and the army had been called in to create a fire break and flames on at least one front had been put out.

"The fire reached the hill overlooking ancient Olympia but was stopped just before entering the archaeological site," said a fire brigade spokesman.

The fire department said some trees in parts of the site had been burned, but that the archaeological museum was safe.

Fire blazed into the nearby village of Varvasaina, destroying several houses. As residents rushed to battle the flames, others, stunned, walked the streets holding their heads in their hands.

Elsewhere in Greece, flames were less than two miles from the Temple of Apollo Epikourios, a 2,500-year-old monument near the town of Andritsaina in the south-western Peloponnese, said the town's mayor, Tryphon Athanassopoulos.

"We are trying to save the Temple of Apollo, as well as Andritsaina itself," he said.

Much of southern Evia had already been consumed by massive fires over the weekend that forced the evacuation of hundreds of people. Yesterday, five people were killed when a fire broke out near Eretria on the western coast.

Several European and Balkan countries, acting under the co-ordination of the European Union, have started to send in teams of firefighters with planes, and helicopters.

The Greek government said help had started arriving from France, Germany, Italy, Cyprus, Portugal, Serbia, Macedonia, the US and Russia.

Constantine Karamanlis, the Greek prime minister, has declared the entire nation in a state of emergency and national mourning and ordered flags to fly at half staff on government buildings.

The opening of the Greek premier football league, scheduled to start yesterday, was postponed until further notice as were a number of cultural and entertainment events.

Three weeks away from a general election, the government presented the country as under attack by "suspect interests", which it would not specify.

Mr Karamanlis said: "So many fires in different places and at the same time cannot be a coincidence. This is a national tragedy."

But the opposition socialist and communist parties blamed the government for incompetence and delays in taking action.

WORLDWIDE DEVASTATION

THE weather has been causing worldwide havoc.

The US states of Idaho and California have, like Greece, been hit by wildfires, while Ohio, already suffering from flooding, was hit by tornados that left hundreds of thousands with no electricity.

Meanwhile, China, India and Romania have been suffering from severe flooding.

In the US, a mandatory evacuation was ordered for residents of more than 1,000 homes south of Ketchum in Idaho where a massive wildfire raged.

And in California, a seven-week-old wildfire has been burning in Santa Barbara county and a recommended evacuation has been put into effect.

In Ohio, beleaguered residents were picking up the pieces after tornado-bearing thunderstorms knocked out power across the state.

Powerful storms during most of the past week caused disastrous floods from south-eastern Minnesota to Ohio that were blamed for at least 18 deaths.

In China, the official Xinhua News Agency yesterday reported torrential rainstorms had triggered landslides and floods, killing at least 13 people.

In India, nearly 2,000 people have been killed by snake bites, drowning, diarrhoea and in house collapses since July when swollen rivers burst their banks, inundating huge areas in eastern India and Bangladesh. The death toll rose by 74 over the weekend.

Overnight rains also caused widespread flooding in Romania, when rivers overflowed, leaving about 1,400 people stranded in villages and forcing the evacuation of the 17th-century Sambata de Sus Monastery.

The rain followed three days of unusually high temperatures of up to 40C (104F).