Fires anger Greek population

While the number of victims has officially stopped at 88, at least at the moment, firemen have joined public outrage on charges of rescue operations.

Authorities have not only been ill-equipped to face fires, but have also failed in apologizing for the tragedy, says Dimitris Statopoulos, who heads the Federation of Firemen.

The government may say that there were no major operational errors, but does not admit there have been thousands of minor mistakes, which gathered together have made a huge mistake, and this has led to such an unprecedented number of victims. The fire brigade recommended evacuation of the area, but was not heard he said.

Furthermore, meteorological services had failed to predict strong winds of up to 124km per hour. This caused fireplanes to stay on the ground because they could not get involved in the action. If meteorological services had increased the level of danger and issued a warning, the planes would have gone to another airport, he insists.

The left government has been damaged not least by the disaster. In what became one of the worst natural disasters in memory, many of the victims were children, and rescue teams continue to search the land and sea for the missing.