Gavin Grey: UK correspondent on wildfires in Greece forcing residents to evacuate

Thousands of residents are being evacuated from their homes as a large wildfire continues to rage north of Athens, with flames leaping as high as 25m.

The historic site of Marathon is among the areas where residents are being moved to safety by the emergency services.

UK correspondent Gavin Grey unpacks the extent of the damage.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right. Devin Gray is our UK correspondent, Devin Evening.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
To you, good morning to you.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hell yeah, have we got some evacuations going on in Greece?

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Now, yeah, this looks some really pretty bad. They've had
a really severe weekend. Forty fires broke out in Greece
since Saturday afternoon and firefighters are still battling seven of them.
Five hundred firefighters in total one hundred and fifty vehicles
deployed to help put out the flames, but perhaps most symbolic,

(00:28):
residents around to the north of Athens north and east
have been evacuated, and the historic side of Marathon is
among the areas where residents are being moved to safety
by the emergency services. With flames reaching as high as
twenty five meters. Firefighters are also evacuating people trapped by
flames in a convoy of twenty to twenty five vehicles.

(00:50):
They've been trying to get out and the flames were
behind them and then before they knew it, the flames
were in front of them. Are just trapped on the road,
so the firefighters trying to get them out safe. But
residents of the historic town Marathon told to evacuate towards
the beach where it's considered to be safer. The problem
has been the winds again found in the size of
the flames, winds up to forty six miles an hour,

(01:14):
so probably looking about sixty something kilometers per hour there,
and the firefighters say that's made life really really difficult,
with hospitals absolutely crammed as well in the area and
the flames really pretty close to Athens.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Now given listen, there's been a warning that those rioters
could actually be some of them could be jailed for
up to ten years as as serious.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yes, it is, and that's because when the Public Prosecutions
first looked at those responsible, they did the sort of
low hanging fruit first of all, in that the easy
to identify the ones that were on CCTV and frankly
the sort of smaller crimes in terms of the scale
of justice. This week we're likely to see more come

(01:57):
before the course, and this time we leave they're going
to be much more serious rioting and a serious charges
rather on the rioting scale, and so we're now seeing,
according to Stephen Parkinson, the Director of Public Prosecutions, some
rioters this week could be jailed for up to ten
years because of the more serious charges. The problem has

(02:20):
always been with this the fact that we are already
very very close to capacity of prison cells. And you
know that the previous the current government blamed the old
government and said it was their fault and responsibility. Either way,
they have managed to clear some cells up. But we're
being told now police so far arrested nearly eight hundred

(02:41):
people in connection with the rioting. Three hundred and fifty
of those have now been charged and because they are
looking out at charges of violent disorder and above, those
charges are going to be much much more serious and
could well result to as longe prison terms.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
This week, Kevin, that little lego shark that was fished
out after twenty seven years actually in pretty good nick
for nearly thirty years on sea.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Isn't it. It's a couple of barnacles on it. But yeah,
so this is an amazing story. So back in February
of nineteen ninety seven, a cargo ship carrying fifty one thousand,
eight hundred lego sharks were basically swept off the cargo
ship and into the ocean about thirty miles off Land's

(03:30):
End to the southwest of England. It was a freak
wave and sixty two shipping containers went down, nearly five
million pieces of lego aboarded. The amazing thing was that
in amongst this collection was basically a collection of new
lego pieces the building blocks for children, which were all
related to the sea. So there were sharks, and there

(03:51):
were different fish and all sorts of things. But you know,
no sharks had ever been found before, despite this being
some twenty seven years ago and then just going into
the ocean, so obviously the currents were playing their tricks. However,
a fisherman ironically has snagged one of those lego sharks,
the first to be found, and it did look him

(04:13):
pretty good. Audio all right, but it's still click into
place is quite another matter. But there is, believe it
or not, the society that looks for lost Lego pieces.
They have confirmed it is a shark and they have
confirmed it is the first piece of all those fifty
one tho eight hundred lego sharks that were made, the
very first one to be discovered some twenty seven years

(04:33):
of Yeah, good.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Stuff, Kevin, Thank you, always appreciate talking to You're talking
in a couple of days. Devin Gray, UK correspondent for
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