A farmer has been arrested for possibly causing the fires that broke out in Cyprus on Saturday, burning forest land and leading to the death of four Egyptian workers.
Limassol District Court issued an eight-day remand on Sunday for the 67-year-old farmer who was seen leaving his field moments before the blaze started and spread like wildfire because of strong winds and high temperatures soaring above 40 degrees centigrade throughout the past week..
The man denies any involvement in the fire that destroyed 55 square kilometres of woodland, several homes and endangered at least four villages.
The four charred bodied of farmhands missing since Saturday were discovered near Odou, according to Interior Minister Nicos Nouris.
The road leading to the villages of Layia, Melini, Odou, Ora, Eptagonia and Ayious Vavatsinias have been shut by police, with the epicentre of the inferno was the village of Arakapas, in the mountain region between Limasol and Larnaca.
Temporary shelters and supply centres have been set up in nearby communities to help people from the affected villages, with 36 of them put in hotels in Limassol overnight.
40 vehicles, airplanes from Cyprus, Greece, Israel
The fire service said all its airborne units were deployed to put up the blaze from Saturday morning, with a dark brown cloud covering the area, seen from Larnaca, where some people reported breathing difficulties due to the ash in the air.
Some 110 service members from the fire brigade and other units were on hand, as well as 40 fire engines from all nearby towns, while Greece sent a Canadair Bombardiers to help put out the fire.
A second aircraft is being refuelled in Rhodes and other firefighting aircraft are expected to arrive from Israel.
President Nicos Anastasiades who visited the area on Sunday, said the villages saw “unprecedented destruction, beyond even what we saw during the Turkish invasion (in 1974)”.
“The (high) temperatures, the strong winds are the biggest dangers when we have such cetastrophes, especially when the human factor is involved,” he said.
A resident of Arakapas, Andrea Anastasiou, captured the moment when a young boy was looking at the fire blazing near the village moment before the community was evacuated.
Taking it one step further, Andrea, a freelance writer and keen environmentalist warned this is also the result of climate disaster.
“I wasn’t sure whether to share this so soon, but I’ve decided I should. This was the scene before we were evacuated from the village. We’ve destroyed this planet. This is a climate emergency”, she posted on Twitter, with her photograph going viral on social media.
