ATHENS, Greece — Funerals for the victims of
Greece’s lethal wildfire began Saturday with the burial of an elderly
priest who drowned as he sought safety from the flames in the sea off
the coastal community of Mati.
Hundreds of
people attended Father Spyridon Papapostolou’s funeral in his parish of
Halandri, a northern suburb of Athens, the Greek capital.
Papapostolou,
his wife and daughter were among hundreds who entered the water to
protect themselves from the fast-moving flames. But the 83-year-old
cleric passed out and drowned, while his wife and daughter survived.
“Father
Spyridon was certainly ready for this trip, but not in this way, he
didn’t deserve it,” his niece, Ifigenia Christodoulou, told The
Associated Press. “I hope that he prays for all us from up there, just
as he has done all these years.”
Dimitra Bavavea directed her anger at the “unjust”
way that so many people — 86 — had lost their lives. The fire was the
deadliest wildfire in Europe since 1900, according to the International
Disaster Database run by the Centre for the Research on the Epidemiology
of Disasters in Brussels.
“My sorrow is great
as is my rage for those who left people to burn to death so unjustly,”
she said. “I hope that those who died are in heaven and I thank you
Father Spyridon for all that you have offered us.”
Greece’s public order minister continued to defend
authorities’ response to Monday’s blaze. Minister Nikos Toskas told
state broadcaster ERT it was impossible to evacuate the area’s 15,000
people in the 90 minutes that Monday’s blaze roared through the area.
In
more sad news, the bodies of twin girls who their father initially
believed had survived the fire have been identified, private
investigator George Tsoukalis told the AP. He said nine-year-old twins
Sophia and Vasiliki Philipopoulos were found in the arms of their
grandparents, who also perished in the fire.
A
day after the fire, Yiannis Philipopoulos issued a public appeal to try
to locate his missing daughters, saying that he had spotted them alive
in TV news footage among a group of people getting off a fishing boat
that had rescued them.
The twins’ tragic death
was also confirmed by Smile of the Child, an independent child welfare
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
identification of the fire remains continues at a steady pace. Greek
authorities haven’t given an account of exactly how many people are
still missing.
Toskas said fire crews did all
they could to save as many lives as possible, but that town planning
errors over the last 60 years had created conditions that made it
difficult for fire crews to do their job.
Toskas
said over half of buildings in the Mati area, 30 kilometers (19 miles)
east of Athens, were constructed without permits. In addition, some
beaches were fenced off, blocking people fleeing the flames from
reaching the water.
He said the government’s priority now is to take measures so that something like this never happens again.
Toskas
did not appear to heed the call of his boss, Prime Minister Alexis
Tsipras, to follow his lead in accepting political responsibility for
the disaster.
But locals in the stricken resort of Mati were unimpressed by Tsipras’ declaration.
“I
want to know what ‘I accept political responsibility’ means ... Will he
go to jail? What’s the payback?” Vissarion Pantelides, 79, said
Saturday.
___
Demetris Nellas, in Athens, and Adam Pemble, in Mati, contributed to the story.
Copyright
2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not
be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
