Hundreds of Greek firemen battled through the night to bring a forest fire threatening Athens under control early yesterday after it destroyed dozens of homes and forced hundreds to flee.
But more than 300 firemen backed by three helicopters dropping water on the flames were still fighting the blaze on Mount Pentelikon north of the capital yesterday, emergency services said.
Hundreds of firefighters and volunteers were called in by local authorities to battle the fire along the lush green slopes of Mount Penteli, about 19km north of Athens. The cause of the fire is not known.
PHOTO: EPA
Despite early efforts to control the blaze, strong winds had the fire racing down the mountain, engulfing three affluent residential districts -- Nea Penteli, Melissia and Vrilissia -- in flames within three hours of its outbreak, officials said.
By midday on Thursday, hundreds of residents were seen tossing bags and belongings into their cars, fleeing not only the fire but also a spate of explosions apparently caused by gas boilers in flaming homes.
More than 10 homes were destroyed on Thursday when firemen also had to evacuate two clinics as winds of more than 80kph pushed flames toward them.
Some 130 patients were moved from a clinic in Melissia, some 20km from central Athens. Another 21 people were moved from a nearby health center.
One firefighter was injured in the operation and one emergency vehicle was burned. A dark cloud of smoke covered much of northern Athens.
"Strong winds and the smoke have hampered ours efforts," said Evangelos Falaras, spokesman for the Greek Fire Brigade. "We can't zero in on the flaming region. So, much of the water is falling off target."
The result: a series of power failures across the Greek capital caused by wet electricity pylons.
Answering criticism that fire services had reacted too slowly to the latest fire in the Athens suburbs, police spokesman Evangelos Falaras said water-bombing planes had been hampered by smoke and the violent winds.
The fire services said the forest fire may have been deliberately started.
Summer fires are regularly blamed on property speculators who burn forests in protected zones so they can then build on the land, even illegally.
The fire ravaged a pine grove recently reforested after two big fires in 1995 and 1998 destroyed thousands of hectares of trees.
Thursday's blaze was the latest in a series that have hit Greece this summer, including areas close to the capital. The blazes followed weeks of drought and heatwave.
A fire on Mount Parnitha, also overlooking Athens, early last month caused widespread damage.
The fires in Greece have killed eight people, including five fire-fighters, and burned huge swathes of forest and scrub land. Two water-bomber pilots were killed when their aircraft crashed battling a blaze on the island of Evia.
The appointment this month of a retired police brigadier to head a fire prevention ranger corps was attacked by critics who dismissed it as a body staffed by near-pensioners.
The corps will initially number 1,700 rangers and will eventually reach 4,500, said the public order ministry.
Much of southern Europe has been hit by drought caused by an intense heatwave which has been blamed for scores of deaths from Bulgaria in eastern Europe through to Spain in the west.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of