The first lawsuit was filed against authorities blamed for the immense loss of life in Greece’s catastrophic wildfires, as the government submitted legislation outlining financial relief for victims.

Distraught relatives who lost family members in the devastating blazes 10 days ago lodged the suit with the public prosecutor’s office amid mounting criticism over the response to the catastrophe.

Propelled by gale-force winds the inferno left more than 91 dead, mostly in the seaside community of Mati, east of Athens.

“All those responsible for the prevention of fires, the extinguishing of fires and people’s’ safety should be convicted and are named in the claim,” the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Antonis Foussas, said. “They include the head of the civil protection agency, the governor of Attica, the mayor of Marathon and the police and fire service.”

The action, filed by the family of two victims, is expected to elicit a wave of similar complaints in the coming weeks. Citing the “huge criminal responsibilities of the competent government bodies and officials responsible for handling and dealing with such serious crisis”, the suit highlighted the lack of evacuation orders that ultimately led to so many people being engulfed by flames.

“In the disastrous fires of 2007 the competent authorities were found guilty of similar charges,” said Foussas. “They received jail sentences of 70 years in total, which, under Greek law, they were able to pay off. Our hope is the same will happen again.”

The victims included a 70-year-old teacher, Vassilis Katsargyris, who became trapped in his garage when, in the power cuts that ensued, the door failed to open, and his 73-year-old neighbour, Maria Pagomenou. Only days earlier Katsargyris, his wife and friends from the US – all of whom made a narrow escape – had been celebrating his daughter’s wedding, the lawsuit said.

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Increasingly, criticism has been levelled at the ineptitude of the state apparatus and rescue operation. From the outset the leftist-led government appears to have been slow to react to the inferno that from its inception on Mount Penteli moved with lightning speed towards resorts in forested areas along the coast.

In the chaos, dozens of drivers were erroneously directed by traffic police into the eye of the inferno when flames jumped across Marathonas Avenue – the region’s main thoroughfare and once considered a natural firebreak. Rescue efforts took so long that many of those who managed to seek salvation in the sea ultimately drowned waiting for naval vessels and private boats to get to them.

“The operational battle was lost in Penteli before [the fires] even reached Neos Voutzas,” the Panhellenic federation of forest guards said, referring to the first community to be engulfed by flames. “What we have to do now is bury our dead with honour without forgetting … or at last listening, with clarity and responsibility, to the scientific analyses and proposals of what should be done in future.”

Rescue crews are still combing the land and sea for those reported missing while the charred remains of at least five people have yet to be identified. More than 40 remain hospitalised with 10 people in intensive care, the fire service announced, suggesting that confusion still surrounded the exact death toll as only 85 bodies had been positively identified.

Greece’s embattled prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, who paid his first visit to Mati on Monday, has assumed political responsibility for the tragedy but neither that, nor the government’s efforts to mete out compensation, has deflected criticism.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, visits the area near Athens that was ravaged by wildfires. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

As parliament prepared to vote through relief measures on Wednesday, the two-party coalition vowed to demolish 3,185 illegal homes in forested areas and along the coast which officials had also blamed for the scale of the calamity. The defence minister, Panos Kammenos, who was rounded on by survivors when he visited Mati last week, singled out illicitly built constructions for criticism, saying they had blocked escaped routes to the sea. Access to beaches had been walled off, he said.

Greek firefighters join public outcry at ‘woeful’ response to lethal wildfires Read more

The destruction of the buildings would not only be accelerated but “prioritised and take place with immediate effect”, said the environment minister, Giorgos Stathakis.

The place where corpses of 26 people had been found – many children locked in protective embrace by adults – was state land that had also been illegally built on, Stathakis’s deputy, Sokratis Famellos, revealed. “It was meant to service bathers and should never have been built on,” he said, pledging that the government would reinforce preventive measures to stop walls, barbed wire and other barriers blocking access to the sea.