With seasonal forest and brush fires raging on the Greek island of Evia, west of Athens, the EU has mobilized water tanker airplanes from Italy and Spain to be dispatched to the affected regions after the Greek government requested Brussels’ assistance.
The EU’s Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management, Christos Stylianides, met in Athens with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and visited the Greek Civil Protection Crisis Center.
After wildfires spiked apocalyptic devastation near Athens, torrential rains caused deadly flooding in Greece in 2018.
The wildfires on Evia erupted just over a year after wildfires killed 103 people in areas north of Athens and nearly wiped out the seaside village of Mati.
The European satellite mapping system Copernicus is now also helping to provide damage assessment maps of the affected areas.
The ignited inferno and high death toll was largely due to the construction of illegal developed buildings that blocked access to the sea and escape routes.
The former ruling government, the radical leftist party SYRIZA, had no disaster or evacuation plan in place.
This angered a wide swath of the impoverished population in Greece and left the European Union skeptical that the previous Greek government had the ability to manage the emergency logistics or other type of Democratic values.
New Europe / ABC Flash Point News 2019.
