Government minister says there is ‘serious indications’ of arson as death toll rises to 85

Grief has turned to fury in Greece, where victims of the deadliest wildfires in more than a decade are blaming an inept state apparatus for the scale of the disaster.

In Mati, the coastal village almost entirely obliterated by the blaze, the defence minister, Panos Kammenos, was heckled on Thursday as authorities announced that the death toll had risen to 85. Residents, who had lost loved ones and homes, rounded on the politician, telling him: “You let us burn. You left us to the mercy of God.”

Kammenos, who heads the leftist-led coalition’s junior partner in office, Independent Greeks, was the first high-ranking official to visit Mati, four days after the fires, propelled by winds of up to 77mph (124km/h), tore through the area east of Athens. The absence of any official presence in a community so devastated, has added to the acrimony.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A woman wearing a mask walks in front of her burnt house near Athens. Photograph: Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP/Getty Images

The wildfires, which have also left countless missing, more than 180 injured and at least 11 fighting for their lives, were being described as the worst to hit the continent since the second world war. No other country, with the exception of Australia, has suffered such loss of life or destruction as a result of wildfires this century.



Nikos Toskas, the minister for public order and citizen protection, raised the possibility that the fires had been set deliberately, saying on Thursday night there were “serious indications” of arson.

But his comments seemed unlikely to deflect criticism of the administration of Alexis Tsipras, which has been condemned for its lack of preparation to deal with a disaster of such scale.

On Wednesday, the government announced generous relief measures but the public anger showed little sign of abating.

Local mayors, instead, stepped up complaints of inadequate evacuation plans. Residents took to the airwaves to complain of the deadly traffic jams that emerged when misdirected drivers saw their only escape routes cut off by authorities. Trapped in the inferno, many died in their cars. “Why did you close Marathonas?” one sobbing woman asked Kammenos, referring to the main road that leads from Mati to Athens.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Burnt cars parked outside a football stadium following a wildfire at the village of Rafina, near Athens. Photograph: Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP/Getty Images

Echoing other government officials, he told the BBC that escape routes had been blocked because so many houses in the area had been illegally constructed on land illicitly cleared by developers.

Meanwhile as rescue crews stepped up efforts to locate the missing – going from home to home, sifting through ruins, and scouring the charred landscape around Mati – two more bodies were found on Thursday.

How the fires in Mati, Greece, spread – a visual guide Read more

Search efforts were expected, increasingly, to extend to the sea, where hundreds rushed on the night of the fires to escape flames moving with extraordinary speed through the seaside village.

“The search to find them will not stop until every building and area affected by the blaze has been checked,” said the fire service’s spokesperson, Stavroula Malliri.

The plight of two nine-year-old twins, among those still unaccounted for, has transfixed a nation brought together by the tragedy. The girls, Vasilliki and Sophia Philipopoulou, who had been in the care of their grandparents when they disappeared in the chaos of the fires, were thought to have been spotted by their father in TV footage of survivors being taken to the port of Rafina in a rescue boat. Both were standing next to a bare-chested, bearded man who appeared to be looking after them.

“My wife as their mother first, and I, are both sure it was them,” Yiannis Philipopoulous told Antenna TV. Mystery surrounding the twins deepened when port authorities later said they had not been among those registered as rescued, triggering fears the girls could have been abducted. A special team of investigators specialised in kidnapping of children arrived in Mati on Thursday.

“Time is against is not our ally but I want to think of the good scenario,” said Giorgos Tsoukalis, the private detective heading the team.

On Thursday night their mother Eleni told the Guardian: “I still have no news.”

The prospect of more bodies being found at sea has grown as tales of the extraordinary ordeals endured by survivors emerged.

“So may of us were in the water for four or five hours,” one survivor told Skai TV, saying while she had found salvation in the sea she had also witnessed women and children drowning beside her.

As the magnitude of the tragedy became ever clearer, forensic scientists spoke of the “unprecedented” horror of having to identify bodies burned beyond recognition.

Victims included numerous children including a six-month-old baby boy.

Relatives flocking to the morgue where remains have been transferred, were told to provide DNA samples to facilitate the identification process.