Death toll in Athens wildfires has increased to 79. This is the number of officially confirmed dead, according to the Fire Service briefing at 11 o’ clock Wednesday morning. Half an hour later, a 84-year-old injured man died in a hospital in Athens, while another body was reportedly found in the areas hit by the wildfires.
Speaking about the number of missing, the Fire Service spokeswoman said “We have received dozens of call for missing.”
She added that as DNA investigation between those who died in the wildfires and their relatives are in full progress, “some of the missing may be among the dead.”
The spokeswoman added one more factor saying that “people who may have returned home failed to inform authorities accordingly.”
Mayor of Marathonas Ilias Psinakis told private ANT1 TV ” By 5 o ‘ clock in the morning, I knew of 40 missing. Later they found five more bodies.”
“We do not receive calls for injured people anymore,” a representative of Attica Ambulance Service told state ERT TV on Wed. “And this means that the question about the missing will be found in the ashes or in the sea,” he added.
Rescue teams go door to door in the areas of Mati and Neos Voutzas resorts at the East coast of Attica, where the fire inferno came from mountain Penteli on Monday at a very high speed due to gusty wind of 9 and at times also 11 Beaufort.
From the more than 180 injured, 71 are still hospitalized, ten of them are intubated and in critical condition.
The Fire Service receives call about missing at phone number <199>.
More KTG posts on Wildfires in Athens here.
