Mati — A wildfire killed at least 74 people and injured more than 150 as it swept through a small resort town near Athens, with huge flames trapping families with children as they fled. The fire in Mati village, about 29km east of Athens, was by far the country’s worst since flames devastated the southern Peloponnese peninsula in August 2007, killing dozens. Monday’s late-afternoon fire was one of several that broke out in the country amid a sweltering heatwave. "Mati doesn’t even exist as a settlement anymore," one woman told Greece’s Skai TV. "I saw corpses, burnt-out cars. I feel lucky to be alive." People scrambled to the sea as the blaze closed in close to the shore. Hundreds were rescued by passing boats but others found their way blocked by smoke and flames. “I was briefed by a rescuer that he saw the shocking picture of 26 people tightly huddled in a field 30m from the beach,” Nikos Economopoulos, head of Greece’s Red Cross, told Skai TV. “They had tried to find an escape ro...
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