A family finds shelter on a beach at Evia, about 100 kilometers north of Athens.

ATHENS: Fires raged across Greece on Sunday, bearing down on hamlets near ancient Olympia in the south a day after the government declared a nationwide state of emergency. At least 57 people have died in the past three days, according to the national fire brigade.

Thick black smoke billowed above the ruins of Olympia as dense pine and cypress forests burned around the site of the first Olympic Games. Firefighters evacuated nearby villages on the southern Peloponnese peninsula.

Flames were about three kilometers, or less than two miles, from the Temple of Apollo Epikourios, a 2,500-year-old monument near the town of Andritsaina in the southwestern Peloponnese, said the town's mayor, Tryphon Athanassopoulos.

In some cases, villages were trapped within walls of flames, cut off from firefighters and, at times, from firefighting aircraft grounded because of high winds.

The Greek fire brigade said it was fighting 44 fires stretching more than 160 kilometers across the Peloponnese, the island of Evia and near Athens.

Vassilis Adamopoulos, a spokesman for the fire brigade, said firefighters had been helped Sunday because the winds had died down. One of the fires outside Athens was extinguished, but several were still burning.

"The situation is extremely critical," Adamopoulos said. "None of these fires is under control."

Firefighters and planes from other European Union countries have joined the battle.

Desperate residents called television and radio stations pleading for help that they feared would not arrive in time.

"I can hear the flames outside my door," one caller from the village of Adritsena told a Greek television station, according to the news agency Reuters. "There is no water anywhere. There is no help. We are alone."

Some of the fires on the outskirts of Athens forced the evacuation of homes and a monastery, and closed a major road linking the capital to the main airport for several hours. The national fire brigade said that by Saturday evening it had brought those blazes under control, including one that came within about 10 kilometers of the city.

The government response to the fires, Greece's worst in decades, is leading to renewed criticism of Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis less than a month before parliamentary elections. Karamanlis had already been heavily criticized for his government's handling of fires earlier this summer.

The country has been vulnerable to fire because of drought and three consecutive heat waves that sent temperatures soaring over 40 degrees Celsius (over 100 Fahrenheit). The earlier fires killed nine people.

The latest spate of fires on the peninsula started Friday. Strong, hot winds have spread the flames.

"The situation is unbelievable" said Yiannis Stamoulis, another spokesman for the Greek Fire Brigade. "We're dealing with savage forces of nature, and it's humanly impossible to effectively take them on, however strong and well-prepared we may be."

He added, "We're fighting an asymmetrical war."

Firefighters expect the official death toll to rise, because they have not yet been able to search some areas that were overrun by flames.

Hardest hit by the fires were a dozen hamlets tucked into the rural highlands around the town of Zaharo in the western peninsula, where at least 12 people, including some who may have been trying to flee by car, were killed.

Charred bodies were found in cars, houses and fields in areas around Zaharo, firefighters said.

At least some of the people there were believed to have been killed or trapped after a collision between a fire truck and a convoy of cars apparently trying to flee the flames. Scores of other residents, including elderly and disabled people, remained trapped in their homes, phoning in to local television and radio stations, crying for help.

"Help! Help! Help!" wailed one resident, speaking with Mega television from the town of Artemida. "Get someone here fast. We're losing everything."

Minutes later, another caller pleaded for the authorities to help save her two children, one of whom she feared was in shock after having seen their home go up in flames.

South of Zaharo, rescue teams confirmed at least six deaths in the seaside town of Areopolis in the Mani region, a popular tourist destination known for its rugged cliffs and ravines.

Among the victims in the area were a pair of French hikers who were trapped in a flaming ravine. Their charred bodies were found locked in an embrace, the authorities said.

Hotels and dozens of surrounding villages have been evacuated as scores of people were seen rushing to local hospitals with severe burns and respiratory problems.

With national elections set for Sept. 16, Karamanlis suspended campaigning over the weekend to oversee the national response to the fires. Late Saturday, he appeared on national television and declared that he was mobilizing all of the country's resources against the fires to "prevail in a battle that must be won."

Karamanlis suggested that the recent fires might have been purposely set.

"So many fires sparked simultaneously in so many regions is no coincidence," he said, wearing a black tie and suit in a show of mourning. "We will get to the bottom of this and punish those responsible."

But political opponents accused the prime minister of shunning responsibility for what the authorities have called a "national tragedy."

"Rather than deflect attention and lay blame on some anonymous arsonist, the prime minister should take blame for the government's failure to effectively handle this crisis," Nikos Bistis, an opposition socialist lawmaker, said on a local television program.

The overstretched national fire services are being helped by an estimated 6,000 soldiers mobilized by the Defense Ministry

.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Discuss this article on the forums. (0 posts) 

 http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/26/news/greece.php