Greece wildfires latest: European countries send fire-fighting planes amid desperate attempts to stop deadly blazes spreading

Death toll expected to rise

Italy and Romania have dispatched fire-fighting aircraft to Greece to tackle wildfires that are still raging and have already killed at least 79 people.

Italy has sent two Canadair planes and Romania a third, with both due to arrive on Wednesday morning, according to Greece’s public order minister, following an offer of help by Croatia including two of the craft. Spain has already sent a further two Canadair-type planes.

International aid has poured in since fire broke out near Athens on Monday afternoon, including a pledge of cash from Macedonia, and offers of support from Germany and Turkey.

Nikos Toskas, the public order minister, said there had never before been so many offers of firefighting help and lauded the solidarity other countries had shown.

Nearly 200 people have been injured amid the fires. Two separate blazes took hold on Monday, one to the west of Athens near the town of Kineta and one to the northeast near the port of Rafina.

Both were fanned by gale-force winds that hampered firefighting efforts and pushed hundreds of people towards beaches, from where they were evacuated on boats late at night.

The Rafina fire appeared to have been the deadliest by far.

There was no official indication Wednesday as to how many people may still be missing, and some people took to social media and Greek television stations with appeals for information on their loved ones.

The death toll was expected to increase as crews searched more of the areas affected by the fires.

More than 280 firefighters were in action near Rafina with a further 200 at Kineta.

Christos Stylianides, the European Union‘s humanitarian aid commissioner, said the bloc would take steps to upgrade its response to natural disasters that have been exacerbated by climate change.

Prime minister Alexis Tsipras declared three days of national mourning. Apart from the dead, who included children, hospitals treated 187 people, most for burns, with 10 listed in serious condition.

Twenty-six of the dead were found after dawn on Tuesday, huddled in a compound near the sea in the community of Mati, the worst-hit area near Rafina.

Red Cross rescuers said they appeared to be families or groups of friends because they were found hugging in groups of threes and fours.

“We couldn’t see any fire. The fire came suddenly. There was so much wind, we didn’t realise how it happened,” said Anna Kiriazova, 56, who survived with her husband by shutting themselves in their house instead of trying to flee through the flames.

She said they doused their house in the Mati area, near Rafina, with water from a garden hose, and credited the fact that their window frames were metal instead of wood for their home being spared.

“We shut ourselves in the house, we closed the shutters, we had towels over our faces. The inferno lasted about an hour. I have no words to describe what we lived through.”

Her 65-year-old husband, Theodoros Christopoulos, said the couple decided to take shelter in their home because the narrow roads outside were jammed with cars.

“There was a great panic because the whole street was blocked by cars,” he said. “Shouting, hysteria, they could see the fire was coming with the wind. It already smelled a lot, the sky was black overhead and in no time at all the fire was here.”

Hundreds of others abandoned cars and fled to nearby beaches, from where they were evacuated hours later by coastguard and private boats. Dozens swam out to sea despite rough weather to escape the intense heat and choking smoke.

Additional reporting by agencies