VAVATSINIA (Cyprus), July 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) –: A huge forest blaze in Cyprus has killed four people, destroyed homes and forced evacuations of villages, police said on Sunday, as Greece, Israel and other countries deployed fire-fighting aircraft to the Mediterranean island.
The Egyptian foreign ministry said the four dead were agricultural workers from the North African country, while Nicosia vowed in a tweet to “stand by the victims’ families in the face of this tragedy, offering every support”.
The fire began on Saturday afternoon and has swept through districts in the southern foothills of the Troodos mountains as the country grapples with a blistering heatwave.
“It is a tragedy,” President Nicos Anastasiades said on Twitter, describing it as “the largest fire since 1974” when the island was divided after Turkey occupied its northern third.
The blaze had caused “loss of life” and destroyed property and forest lands, Anastasiades said, adding that the government will provide immediate assistance to the victims and the families of the victims.
“We will not leave anyone abandoned in the destruction of the fire.”
Firefighters were successful in bringing the main fire under control on Sunday, authorities said, while warning that strengthening winds could yet propel a resurgence.
Interior Minister Nicos Nouris told reporters the four Egyptians’ charred bodies were found outside the village of Odos in Larnaca district.
Their burnt-out car was found at the bottom of a ravine and the four bodies about 600m away. A policeman at the scene said that they appeared to have fled the car on foot but run in the direction of the wind-fanned flames, in a doomed attempt to escape.
A 67-year-old farmer was arrested and remanded in custody on suspicion of starting the blaze. He was seen by an eyewitness leaving the village of Arakapas in his car at the same time the fire started there on Saturday, police said.
He could face charges of recklessly causing the deaths of the four Egyptians, police added. — NNN-AGENCIES
