Arsos village ‘left without support from state’ after firefighters withdrew
The Limassol district village of Arsos was “left without support from the state” after firefighters withdrew from the frontline of the fire near the village on Wednesday, its mukhtar Yiannakis Yiannaki said on Thursday evening.
Speaking to the Cyprus News Agency, he said volunteers and village councillors had worked through Wednesday night, “waging a battle to prevent the fire from reaching the residential areas of Arsos” and containing that part of the fire.
He said aerial firefighting vehicles had been operating at the site through the early part of Wednesday afternoon but had withdrawn at 4pm, despite his own objections.
Then, he said “there was a resurgence in two phases”, with the fire swelling first at 10.30pm and then at 5.30am on Thursday, with firefighters returning to the scene later on Thursday.
Yiannaki is not the only mukhtar in the area to accuse the government of negligence with regard to the fire, with Souni-Zanakia village mukhtar Nikos Vikis telling CyBC that “we evacuated the village on our own” and that “we asked for help but got nothing”.
He later appeared on Politis radio and offered more criticism for the authorities, saying that “fire engines started coming to Souni when the fire had burnt half the village”.
Later in the day, Vouni village mukhtar Mattheos Protopapas told the Cyprus News Agency (CNA) that when his village was “engulfed in flames” on Wednesday afternoon, “we did not receive any help from the fire brigade from the beginning”.
Government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis, however, denied that the government had been negligent in its handling of the fire, saying that its deadly consequences had instead been caused by “unprecedented conditions”.
“From the very first moment, all the plans and all the protocols which had been drawn up were activated in unprecedented conditions, in a fire of which the cause is still being investigated. The temperatures, strong winds, and drought … aggravated the situation and made it even more difficult,” he said.
When a journalist put to him the question of whether the government had been negligent, he stressed that “from the very first moment, the mechanisms were activated and all available aerial and ground resources were in operation”.
His comments echoed those of Justice Minister Marios Hartsiotis, who stressed on Thursday morning that “everything that could have been done under the circumstances was done” when he spoke to CyBC radio.
“This is not the time for apportioning blame. The fire must be brought under control. I understand the pain, the sadness, and the destruction of a lifetime’s worth of work, but that does not imply disorganisation on the government’s part,” he said.