As Greece mourns dozens of deaths from the fire that devastated the resort of Mati and other areas east of Athens ten days ago, the role of the of the Civil Protection Agency and the traffic police are under scrutiny.
Writing in Kathimerini, professor Vasilis Digalakis, sheds light into a fatal mistake that led hundreds of vehicles into the eye of the inferno last Monday.
He says that police diverted traffic from Marathon Avenue, the main road linking Athens to the eastern seaside resorts, into the center of Mati.
He claims that when the fire (red arrow) approached Marathon Avenue sometime around 18:20, the traffic police instead of ordering drivers to do a U-turn, it diverted them into the labyrinth of Mati which was obliterated by the blaze soon after.
According to the police announcements on July 23, the diversion of the cars was made at the two points in Marathon Avenue with blue triangles (see graph) for vehicles heading towards Nea Makri and Marathon.
Further north, a police blockade was again diverting drivers heading to Athens towards coastal roads.
Drivers from both directions were sent towards the eye of the inferno.
The chaos that ensued is confirmed by the shocking pictures of burned cars in Mati. Vehicles coming from both directions became trapped in the narrow streets of the resort.
Digalakis says that the police officers at Marathon Avenue were executing orders. If they had been instructed to stop the traffic and send the cars back, rather than towards Mati, they would have done so.
The fatal mistake was made due to a total lack of coordination.
The responsibility for co-coordinating the police, the fire service and local authorities during a disaster of this scale lies with Civil Protection Agency, which failed to do its job, Digalakis says.
See all the latest news from Greece and the world at Greekreporter.com. Contact our newsroom to report an update or send your story, photos and videos. Follow GR on Google News and subscribe here to our daily email!
