August 25, 2007
Wildfires Kill 44 In Greece, Including 3 Firefighters
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Reuters via Yahoo! news:
"Fire brigades were battling 87 forest fires around the country on Saturday, in "western Greece, the Peloponnese, the island of Evia and the Attica (Athens) region," fire department spokesman Ioannis Stamoulis said.
Soaring temperatures, hot winds, drought and arson have been blamed for the unusual number of forest fires this summer.
Worst hit was the Peloponnese, where dozens of villages have been evacuated while others remain cut off by the flames. Fires in the region stretched some 160 km (100 miles) from the Ionian Sea in the west to Mani in the peninsula's most southern part.
"My village is burning," a resident from Travlos in the Ilia region told Greek television. "There are about 500 people here. We have gathered water in buckets and are waiting for the flames to approach. There is nothing else we can do....."
".......I can hear the flames outside my door. There is no water anywhere, there is no help. We are alone," a resident from the village of Adritsaina told a Greek TV station by mobile phone.Greece declared a state of emergency in the provinces of Lakonia, Messinia and Ilia - where electricity and phones were largely cut off - and called for urgent help from its European Union partners.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said he was "saddened by the tragic loss of human lives" and he hoped EU partners would "provide all the material support Greece needs in this moment of distress."
Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyanni said France was sending 4 Canadair planes, due on Saturday, and also 60 firefighters.
Germany had offered three helicopters and Norway one plane under a joint European firefighting program."
Labels: 2007 fire season, Google Maps
