Mati

As the toll from last month's wildfires in east Attica Thursday climbed to 98 with the death of an 83-year-old woman at an Athens hospital, residents at the seaside town of Mati, which suffered the biggest losses, continue to face significant challenges.

A year after they were rescued by aid workers off Greece's Aegean islands as they fled war in Syria, Saddam, Yusef, Osama and Idris found themselves in a reverse situation: Helping Greeks who suffered losses in last month's deadly wildfires in Attica's Mati and Kineta get back on their feet.

Authorities are this week to continue knocking down homes that were destroyed in last month's Attica wildfires, as notifications start going out to owners of properties deemed to have been illegally built on forestland or coastlines ahead of demolitions slated to begin in the middle of September.

Demolition work got under way on Monday on houses burned in last month's disastrous wildfire in Mati, eastern Attica. Efforts focused on structures that suffered such damage in the blaze so as to be deemed dangerous, not on the thousands of illegally built structures that the government pledged to knock down in the wake of the fires.

Greece's leftist government faced controversy Sunday following reports that Maximos Mansion sent out guidelines to senior administration officials on how to spin bad press in the aftermath of the lethal wildfires that ravaged eastern Attica on July 23.

As awful as major disasters may be, they tend to bring out the best in this country. It happened in the wake of the destructive flash floods in Mandra, west of Athens, and more recently after the lethal wildfires that ravaged Mati and other settlements east of the capital.

Volunteer groups, foundations, businesses and individuals all joined the relief effort.

You cannot possibly expect to set up a solid and efficient mechanism for civil protection when you appoint unqualified party officials to key positions in this agency.

Perfect as the government's plans to overhaul the system may seem on paper, such agencies must be designed and run by the country's top staff.

Survivors of last month's deadly blazes on the outskirts of Attica are struggling to cope while experts are warning of the public health risks posed by toxic ash in the afflicted areas, Kathimerini has learned. 

As local authorities in northern Greece carried out a small-scale demolition in an apparently symbolic move, the main opposition accused the leftist-led government of hypocrisy, pointing to documents suggesting that it put off the demolition of the illegal structures it is now pledging to knock down. 

Prime ministers in Greece often fall victim to a unique type of egotism.