Rescue teams have found the lifeless bodies of the two pilots of the helicopter that crashed west of Athens while participating in the firefighting efforts in Greece, after colliding with another helicopter, whose occupants managed to escape unharmed after making an emergency landing.
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With these two, the death toll from these fires has reached five, following the three firefighters who died last week in Crete and the Peloponnese peninsula. The accident footage shows how the rotor of one of the helicopters hits the other before crashing engulfed in a ball of fire.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has mourned the death of these two “frontline fighters in the war against the fires” and highlighted that they were working until the last moment “under very adverse weather conditions.”
Mitsotakis pointed out that “there are moments when nature and the intensity of weather phenomena surpass any human planning and any operational capacity” and praised the work of the firefighting teams on the front lines, who bore almost exclusively “the weight of the battle” against the fire due to the impossibility of deploying aerial resources.
In this regard, the Greek prime minister wanted to express his “unlimited gratitude” to “all those who once again fight a battle that often exceeds human limits” and also had words of recognition for the three firefighters who died last week. “To their families, we owe our deepest support,” he said in a message on social media.
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Meanwhile, the flames of the fire have spread from west of Athens to just a few kilometers from the town of Mégara, which has a population of about 36,000 inhabitants. Since Friday, more than 10,000 hectares have been consumed by the flames, including agricultural land and houses, reports ERT.
“The situation is chaotic,” said the mayor of Mégara, Panagiotis Margetis. Hundreds of personnel, including firefighters from France and Romania, are fighting a large fire that is ravaging the Kithairon mountain range, located very close to the north of this municipality.
Initial suspicions point to the fire possibly being caused by a short circuit in the electrical wiring of a private wind farm. Two people have already been detained. Winds were expected to calm this Monday, although the risk of fires around Athens remains very high.
