Greek PM takes political responsibility for wildfires as criticism mounts

Greece's Prime Minister AlexisTsipras took political responsibility on Friday for a wildfirethat killed at least 87 people and led to opposition accusationsthat the government failed to protect lives.

Tsipras's opponents went on the offensive on Friday as threedays of mourning ended, accusing the government of failing toapologize for the disaster.

Seeking to deflect public anger, Tsipras told ministers hewas conflicted over whether the authorities had done everythingright in response to the disaster.

"I have called you here today first of all to take fullpolitical responsibility for this tragedy in front of my cabinetand the Greek people," he said.

"I won't hide that I am overwhelmed by mixed feelings rightnow ... Pain, devastation for the human lives unexpectedly andunfairly lost. But also anguish at whether we acted correctly ineverything we did."

Tsipras' contrition comes after the main opposition NewDemocracy party criticized a government news conference onThursday night where not one word of apology was heard.

"This government has just added unbridled cheek to itsabject failure in protecting lives and people's property," saidNew Democracy spokespersonMaria Spyraki.

Civil Protection Minister Nikos Toskas said the government suspected arson was behind Mondaynight's blaze, which trapped dozens of people in their carstrying to escape a wall of flames.

Survivors of one of the worst Greek disasters in livingmemory, which hit the town of Mati, some 30 kmeastof Athens on Monday, heckled Tsipras's coalition partner, sayingthey had been left to fend for themselves.

Pressure is growing on the government, which is trailing NewDemocracy in opinion polls, at a time when it had hoped tofinally extricate Greece from years of bailouts prompted by itsdebt crisis and reap the political benefits.

Tsipras now faces questions over how so many got trapped inthe fire as the death toll could rise still further.

Tsipras had not been seen in public since Tuesday, when hedeclared the three days of national mourning for the dead.

Politicians' criticism reflected anger among the survivors.

"They left us alone to burn like mice," Chryssa, one of thesurvivors in Mati, told Skai television. "No one came here toapologize, to submit his resignation, no one."

Toskas said he had offered his resignation but Tsiprasrejected it.

Fofi Gennimata, who leads the socialist PASOK party, saidthe government carried a huge political responsibility.

"Why didn't they protect the people by implementing on timethe available plan for an organized and co-ordinated evacuationin the areas that were threatened?" she said.

The government has announced a long list of relief measuresincluding a one-off 10,000 ($15,200 Cdn) payment for familiesof the victims. Their spouses and near relatives were alsooffered public sector jobs.

But many felt that was not enough to ease the pain and hadwanted authorities to assume responsibility for the scale of thedevastation.

About 300 firefighters and volunteers were still combingthe area on Friday for those still missing. More than 500 homes were destroyed by the blaze.

Haphazard and unlicensed building, a feature of many areasacross Greece, was also blamed. Many routes to the beach werewalled off.

Arson suspected in massive, deadly Greek fire

6 years ago

Duration 1:03

More than 80 dead, hundreds displaced after fire burns for days

Tsipras promised a national plan to tackle decades ofunauthorised construction and to reform and upgrade the CivilProtection Service "to guarantee ... that there will be no moretragedies."

Mortuary staff in Athens, shocked at the sight of burntbodies including children, were expected to conclude post-mortems on Friday after relatives of victims providedinformation and blood samples which could assistidentifications.

The fire broke out on Monday at 4:57 p.m. and spread rapidlythrough Mati, a resort townpopular withlocal tourists.

Firefighters described a rapid change in the direction ofthe wind, which also picked up speed, and some suggested the thick covering of pine trees and a mood of panic were a deadlycombination that would have been hard to combat.