National Tragedy – 47 Dead people HitGreece.com

I am writing to you from Singapore, where — although I am not Greek — my heart is filled with concern and sorrow over these fires. Please, not Olympia. It has been many years since I was a university student in the UK, but the good Greek friends I made during my studies gave me a deep love of everything Hellenic. Thank you for your wonderful website, and I pray that you and your family as well as all your loved ones will be safe in the coming days. Take care — Auntie

Olympia is safe, but the dead people are 61 now and the ecologic disaster is huge.

Sorry, I sincerely didn’t mean to imply that the human lives meant any less to me. My heart aches constantly for the lost ones, young and old, in a way that it hasn’t done since the terrible days of theTsunami. I couldn’t stop crying when I read about the man who had to bury his 6-year-old son and his own mother, who were taken by the fires before he could rescue them. And the mother who died holding her four children, who also died… all my love and prayers, even if it’s not much, go to you and every Greek person. Love, Auntie.

The human toll is very high. In terms of comparing populations of Greece and the United States, it is as if over 1,700 Americans had been killed.

The BBC news website has articles on the economic and environmental cost of the recent wildfires:

Environmental loss: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6966822.stm

Economic loss:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6968799.stm

One thing to keep in mind is that wildfires are quite common in Mediterranean summers — although not on the catastrophic scale that we just have been seeing. They are also common in the American West during the summer. Vegetation is likely to return in the Mediterranean after some years, as it does in the American West.

One long-term effect is likely to be the decline of rural life as survivors move to towns and cities from the villages that have been destroyed, and even from villages that were threatened but not destroyed.

The summer forest fire is a part of the Greek and Mediterranean ecosystem. (I have read that the 1871 fires may have been as bad or worse.) They will come in the future. It does seem that the Greek state should invest in more firefighting resources, such as the water-carrying airplanes lent by other countries.

I have also read that property developers have incentives to set fires because forests are protected. It will take time to set up an up-to-date registry. In the meantime, a comprehensive set of satellite maps, like info’s Google maps, could be used for legal proof that land is forest land and therefore protected from property developers.

P.S. to Info:

I am sorry for the length of this comment, but hope it is worthwhile. If you like some of the ideas, please feel free to share them with others.

Sharon I didn’t also think that you imply that the human lives meant any less to you. I just found the opportunity to notice that the list of dead people is bigger than the title says.

Unfortunately the real tragedy is that the politicians now make the pre elections campaign, using the pain of the fire victims.

I’ve watched all that great disaster on Tg news… And seeing all I felt so so in bad mood.
I hear my great friend from Greece, and she told me that all places that I saw when I went there are all disappeared…

I really love Greece and I really hope that all comes-back like ever

Filakia!!!

CIAO!

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