GREECE:Greece yesterday offered a reward of up to €1 million for information leading to the arrest of any arsonists responsible for a spate of forest fires that have killed at least 57 people in the past three days.
"The reward is set between €100,000 to €1 million for every arson, depending on whether death or serious injury occurred and the size of the damage," the public order ministry said.
Unchecked fires have killed 57 people and burned more than 500 homes, businesses and tens of thousands of hectares of forest since Friday, with the government declaring a nationwide state of emergency.
Firefighters yesterday battled to save ancient Olympia as thick black smoke billowed above the ancient ruins. Dense pine and cypress woods burned around the site of the first Olympic Games and fire brigades evacuated nearby villages on Greece's southern Peloponnese peninsula.
"The fire reached the hill overlooking ancient Olympia but was stopped just before entering the archaeological site," said a fire brigade spokesman. The fires scorched the yard of the museum, housing a number of famous classical sculptures such as Hermes by Praxiteles and other finds from the ruins of the temples and sports facilities, Greek television said.
"We don't know exactly how much damage there is in the Olympia area, but the important thing is that the museum is as it was and the archaeological site will not have any problem," said culture minister George Voulgarakis said at the site. Firefighters remained in the area after dark to ensure the blaze did not re-ignite.
Ancient Olympia boasts the ruins of the stadium and pagan temples that hosted the Olympics for centuries from 776 BC and is the site of an Olympic flame ceremony every two years. "Here it is, the contrast: ancient Greece gave the world civilisation and modern Greece gives it destruction," a resident of ancient Olympia told Alter TV.
With an estimated 170 fires on 42 fronts and new ones erupting every hour, prime minister Costas Karamanlis said the situation was simply too much for Greece to cope with alone and appealed to the European Union for help. Italy, France, Germany, Norway and Spain despatched aircraft and commandos and yesterday French leader Nicolas Sarkozy offered Mr Karamanlis further aid after it emerged that two French tourists were among the casualties.
Greece's foreign minister Dora Bakoyiannis said she expected 31 aircraft from 11 countries to arrive in Greece today. Despite the overseas assistance, authorities remained pessimistic that the fires, which had intensified as they raged through six pine forests, would be brought under control any time soon.
"The winds have fallen and that is helpful but this is a situation that cannot be confronted easily," said Nikos Diamantis, a spokesman for the firefighters.
As the blazes worsened over the weekend, the government ordered in the military. By last night about 500 conscripts had joined locals, often armed with little more than buckets and hose pipes, in the west, north and south of the country, as the fires spread to the island of Evia, killing at least six people there.
The tardy intervention of the army added to widespread condemnation of the government's handling of the catastrophe. Many criticised Mr Karamanlis, who this month called an election for September 16th, of failing to do enough to prevent the outbreak of some 3,000 forest fires that have destroyed large parts of Greece throughout the summer.
The ruling New Democrats have also been denounced for undermining the firefighting force, reorganised by the former Socialist government ahead of the 2004 Athens Olympic games, by handing top jobs to inexperienced political appointees.
"This is nothing short of a national tragedy," said Giorgos Papandreou, Greece's main opposition leader, after visiting the Peloponnese. "The government has a lot to answer for."
Writing in the Sunday Vima, columnist Rihardos Someritis summed up the mood: "We had a beautiful country but we are increasingly losing it to fires, rubbish and the illegal buildings [ built on land cleared by blazes]."
Yesterday, as fires continued to smoulder in the Hymettus range surrounding Athens and acrid smoke and ashes filled the air above the capital, the health ministry appealed to inhabitants to stay indoors.
Wild fires across Greece are frequently blamed on arsonists working on behalf of developers intent on building on prime forest land. Mr Karamanlis said it was "too much of a coincidence" that so many of the blazes had erupted simultaneously and often in the dead of night.