Precis

The fire came without warning, exploding in the twilight.  It ripped through bushy hills and roared down on the little seaside haven of Mati, just outside Athens.

In Australia, we’d have a plan in place.  There would be a text message saying, ‘the fire is at such and such. Get out.’  - Stella Tzaninis, Greek-Australian part time Mati resident

But this was Greece. Burning cars choked narrow lanes. Illegally built houses blocked escape routes to the sea. Fumbling police sent traffic into the path of the inferno.

I can hear the people - in the cars, the old people, lots of old people. You can do nothing – Alex Tzaninis, who tried to help people to safety

Many who did make it to the beach died of burns or drowned as nearby tourist ferries kept plying their trade, emptying more cars into the fire zone.

By the time firefighters came, Mati was gone. By the time fireman Andreas Dimitriou came home, his fatally injured wife Margarita was alongside his dead baby son.

I don’t know who to be angry with – angry with God? Angry with people? Angry with myself? – Andreas Dimitriou

Andreas’ wife and son are part of a death toll that stands at 99 and may still go higher.

Greece is ringing with recriminations.

I cannot think of a single part that went right in this disaster. How is it possible that the system could leave these people so helpless?  In Greece there is no culture of planning for big public emergencies - Costas Synolakis, crisis management expert

Was this simply a case of bungling and zero planning? Or something more? Greeks are arguing whether deep spending cuts from EU-imposed austerity made a bad situation truly catastrophic.

Firefighters say their budgets and wages have been cut; they even have to buy their own uniforms. Many fire trucks sit unrepaired and useless, while water-bombing planes are frequently grounded.

We’ve been paying with our own blood for a debt they created. It was not an accident. It is a crime demanding justice and punishment – former parliamentary Speaker Zoe Konstantopoulou

Flames on hillside at dusk

Music

00:00

ERIC CAMPBELL:  It swept down the mountain like a vengeful god.

00:06

Campbell with Maria Dizeli

[talking to a survivor] “Cars were burning?”

MARIA DIZELI: “Cars were burning.  People was in panic. 

00:10

People taking shelter from fire in water

People were injured. It was chaos, yes. 

00:15

Two men hug by burnt out cars

Yes, many people died here”.

00:19

House engulfed by flames

ERIC CAMPBELL: This was the world’s deadliest bushfire since Australia’s Black Saturday, nine years ago. 

00:23

Aftermath of fire, Mati

But Mati is not a vast or remote bushland region, it’s a resort town just 30 minutes-drive from Athens.

00:33

Synolakis

PROFESSOR COSTAS SYNOLAKIS: “I cannot think of a single part that went right in this disaster. 

00:41

Fire shots

One wonders that there were not more people dead”.

00:44

ERIC CAMPBELL: 99 people died with no warning of the danger and no attempt at evacuation. 

00:49

Drone shots. People in cars trying to get to water

Was it an unstoppable freak of nature, or staggering incompetence?

00:59

Athens GVs

And did years of austerity imposed by the European Union forcing cutbacks to emergency services turn disaster to catastrophe?

01:05

Protest march

01:14

“It’s meant to be a milestone

01:19

Campbell to camera outside Greek Parliament, at protest march

symbolising a new beginning for Greece, but for many the fire is the real symbol of what Greece has become after eight years of enforced austerity.

01:21

Burnt out cars and houses

ZOE KONSTANTOPOULOU: “This was a holocaust at a time of peace.  It was not an accident,

01:32

Konstantopoulou

it was a crime and it is a crime demanding justice and punishment”.

01:37

Title:
Foreign Correspondent

Music

01:44

Pine tree. Title:
EYE OF THE FIRE

01:53

Campbell walks to burnt out house

Title:
reporter
Eric Campbell

01:59

Red Cross team visit Zaharias. Super:
Mati, Greece

ERIC CAMPBELL: It’s how war zones look when the fighting stops.  The Red Cross patrolling the scorched earth tending to survivors.  Every day, medical teams visit victims like Zaharias Konstantakis, still living in his ravaged home.

02:10

Campbell and medical team visit Zaharias

ZAHARIAS KONSTANTAKIS: “I came here and went to the window.  It was like a battle was going on. Bam bam boom!  They were packed with exploding gas cylinders”.

02:36

Medics tend to Zaharias burnt feet

ERIC CAMPBELL:  Greeks take immense pride in pulling together in times of crisis.  The 84-year-old air force veteran raced over burning bitumen that melted his shoes, to bring two children to safety.

02:54

ZAHARIAS KONSTANTAKIS: “My shirt got burnt a little. I grabbed the children and one of them didn’t want to come with me.  “You’re not my daddy!” So I grab him by the hair and the other I grab like this.  But the smoke…”

RED CROSS WORKER: “Were you frightened of the fire?”

03:09

ZAHARIAS KONSTANTAKIS: “Me?  I’m not afraid of anything!”

03:26

ERIC CAMPBELL:  Every home, every family here has a story of survival.

03:32

Medical team visit Ilias

Ilias Karvonopoulos nearly died riding his motorbike through flames to find and rescue his mother.

03:41

“How is your mother now?”

ILIAS KARVONOPOULOS: “Ah fine… and me too”.

03:51

Medics tend to Ilias's burns

I will try to fix my house and the place. I will put some trees. Something like that.  I’m alive… so I’ll keep going. [laughs]

04:02

Ilias's mother

I feel very lucky.  Very lucky.  It was a small paradise. Now it's kólasi.

NURSE: “Hell”.

ILIAS KARVONOPOULOS: “Hell, yes”.

04:21

Burnt out houses

ERIC CAMPBELL:  Today it’s hard to imagine that this was Athens’ seaside escape, a haven for retirees, tourists and the Greek diaspora. 

04:39

Burnt out car

Most thought they were safe from fire. 

04:53

Mati harbour, wind blowing

Music

04:57

ERIC CAMPBELL: In Greek, Mati means eye… as in eye of the north wind.  It blows almost incessantly onshore. 

05:03

Fire danger sign

But for days, the bureau of meteorology had warned of unusual winds in the opposite direction,

05:15

Drone shot, burnt out houses to ocean

sweeping down from the hills to the coast.

05:22

Fire on both sides of freeway

On the morning of July 23^rd, many of Mati’s firefighting resources were sent to a blaze 60 kilometres away. 

05:31

Helicopter vision of fire

But at 4:49 pm a second fire broke out in the hills above Mati. It was more than two hours before a fire brigade helicopter was diverted to drop water. 

05:39

Unit commander Giorgos Antonakopoulos says by then the wind speed was more than 100 kilometres per hour.

05:55

Antonakopoulos

GIORGOS ANTONAKOPOULOS: “One moment you’d look to the left and see the fire and then the next moment you’d look again and the fire had already passed by”.

06:04

Fire shots. Residents and tourists flee

Music

06:12

ERIC CAMPBELL: It was already too late.  The fire had reached the coast. Suddenly residents and day trippers were surrounded by smoke and flames.  The roads were soon gridlocked, then blocked by burning cars. 

06:20

People standing in sea

The only hope of escape was the sea.

MARIA DIZELI: “Yes many people died here.

06:34

Campbell with Maria

They tried to jump, like one girl tried to jump from the cliff”.

06:40

People taking refuge in sea

ERIC CAMPBELL: School teacher Maria Dizeli lives on the waterfront, but even she feared she’d die.  Mati is built on cliffs with few paths to the water and almost none are marked.

“So you had to get in the water but there’s

06:47

Campbell walks with Maria along waterfront path

fire all around you”.

MARIA DIZELI: “Yes.  Fire there, there, there… everywhere”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: “Tree on fire over there.  Tree on fire over there.

07:04

Okay, so you knew that there was that path down to the beach”.

MARIA DIZELI: “Yes I knew”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: “Because you’re a local”.

MARIA DIZELI: “Because I live here, that’s why.  I live here”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: “But other people, visitors, they had no idea how to get down”.

MARIA DIZELI: “No, they had no idea”.

07:11

Campbell and Maria walk down steps leading to beach

ERIC CAMPBELL:  Despite having a dangerous heart condition she managed to reach the stairs with her husband and son and climb down to the beach.

“So how many people were sheltering here on this beach?”

07:23

MARIA DIZELI: “Well around 30 people”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: “Thirty?  It’s a small area”.

MARIA DIZELI: “Yes, yes we were like sardines here”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: “Yes.  Did you feel safe once you were down here?”

MARIA DIZELI: “No, of course not”.

07:35

ERIC CAMPBELL: “So how many hours were you… you came here at about 6:30”.

07:46

MARIA DIZELI: “Five, five hours”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: “You were here five hours waiting to be picked up”.

MARIA DIZELI: “Yes, yes we were here five hours, and people were crying here.  People were asking for their families.  There were mothers crying for their children. It was chaos here”.

07:48

Campbell points towards Rafina/ Tourist ferries on sea

ERIC CAMPBELL: But over there we can see the Port at Rafina, where the tourist ferries come and go from the Greek Islands”.

MARIA DIZELI: “Yes, yes”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: “Could you call the port authority?”

MARIA DIZELI: “Of course we called them.

08:06

Campbell and Maria

We had our mobiles.  We called them again and again, and we called our families to inform them, but they didn’t do anything”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: “So who finally rescued you?”

MARIA DIZELI: “Just a small fishing boat coming from Neo Makri”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: “A private fishing boat?”

MARIA DIZELI: “Yes, a private…

MARIA DIZELI: “But he couldn’t reach us here, because as you can see,

08:17

Rocky shoreline

there are big rocks here and it’s a very dangerous beach.  So we swam”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: “You had to swim out in that?”

08:41

Campbell and Maria

MARIA DIZELI: “We had to swim two hundred metres”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: “Two hundred metres”

08:49

MARIA DIZELI: “You know to reach the boat”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: “In the dark”.

MARIA DIZELI: “In the dark, yes”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: “And the smoke, after hours and hours”.

MARIA DIZELI:  Yes, yes.

08:52

Night vision. Small boats pulling aboard people from shore

ERIC CAMPBELL:  Almost 700 people were eventually picked up by a flotilla of small boats and the coastguard.  Many drowned or died of burns as they waited.

08:58

Drone shot over church

09:13

Congregation in church

This small community gathers in a church that was somehow spared by the inferno, to farewell nearly 100 loved ones.  It is 40 days since the disaster. In the Orthodox faith it’s when the souls of the dead rise to heaven.

09:24

Andreas lights candle in church

Andreas Dimitriou was one of the firemen battling the blaze.  As soon as he heard the flames were near his home, he raced back to try to save his family. 

09:49

Shrine photos of Margarita and baby

He found his wife Margarita dying by the water’s edge.  She was alongside the body of their six-month-old son.

10:01

Andreas

ANDREAS DIMITRIOU: “It as an absolute catastrophe.  I’ve lived the absolute catastrophe from that day on.  Not only me.  Also her parents, and generally all my family.  It is something you cannot easily accept.  You wouldn’t wish it on anyone – not even your enemy”.

10:10

Drone shot over burnt houses

Music

10:41

Campbell to camera, walking through the burnt landscape

ERIC CAMPBELL: “This all happened in the midst of a horror Northern Hemisphere summer, with heatwaves and fires in the Arctic, deadly infernos in Japan and North America, temperatures off the charts across Europe.  But Greece was the exception.  This was an unusually mild summer with far more rain than normal.  This was not a fire linked to climate change, it could have happened any summer.  The authorities knew that – they just weren’t ready for it”.

10:55

Exteriors. Campbell to Athens Academy

So how did the Greek government and its emergency services fail so comprehensively?  I’ve come to Greece’s

11:23

Campbell greets Synolakis

most prestigious research centre to meet the one man who may have answers.

11:33

Campbell and Synolakis in Academy

Costas Synolakis is a crisis management expert and a member of the Academy of Athens.  He was commissioned by an opposition party to interview survivors and piece together what went wrong.

PROFESSOR COSTAS SYNOLAKIS: “I was incredibly surprised and shocked

11:41

Synolakis

by the stories of the people and, you know, what happened.  There was absolutely no pre-planning.  In Greece there is no culture

11:58

Prof. Costas Synolakis
Disaster expert

of planning for big public emergencies.  Most people, including the government, are in complete denial.  These things don’t happen here”.

12:11

Aerials.  Smouldering cars/Smoke from fire

Music

12:21

ERIC CAMPBELL: One of his most disturbing discoveries was that police had directed cars into Mati, believing the coastal highway behind the town would act as a firebreak.

12:26

Synolakis

PROFESSOR COSTAS SYNOLAKIS: “And they had diverted traffic to the smaller streets which in effect

12:39

Burnt out cars

blocked and created a gridlock, so even the people who tried to evacuate from the smaller streets, they couldn’t. And other people who had absolutely nothing to do with Mati, who didn’t even live there,

12:45

Synolakis

they were actually diverted into harm’s way.  That made absolutely no sense”.

12:56

Helicopter shots, sea, ferry

Music

13:01

ERIC CAMPBELL: Even more surprising were the actions of the Coast Guard.  It not only failed to send rescue boats in time,

13:06

Tourist ferry

for hours it allowed tourist ferries to continue arriving.

PROFESSOR COSTAS SYNOLAKIS: “The Coast Guard did not stop ferries coming in to the Port of Rafina, which is very close, which was again a horrible mistake,

13:13

Synolakis

because ferries unload a lot of cars.  This adds to the traffic load. You do not, at that moment, you do not want to have more cars on the road.  You want to have the roads open as possible because you want to move traffic away.  You do not want to bring in more traffic from ferries that are coming in. 

13:26

Synolakis and Campbell

Where is the government in all of this?  I mean the number one responsibility of any government is protecting its citizens.  This is a number one responsibility – everything else comes second.  And here, the government failed completely”.

13:44

Protest at parliament

14:04

ERIC CAMPBELL: Weeks on survivors are demanding the government pay for what happened.

14:09

WOMAN PROTESTOR: “I’m here because they burned down my house.  How I wasn’t burnt too, I don’t know”.

14:14

Street protest

ERIC CAMPBELL: It’s a restrained crowd compared to the usual protestors.  Anarchists hurling Molotov cocktails have been a regular feature here since the economy collapsed in 2009.  These middleclass victims are doubtful they’ll get more help.

14:21

Tourists at changing of the guard

Their protest is ignored by the crowds of tourists here for the changing of the guard.  They fear politicians just want them to go away.

14:42

Campbell at protest outside Greek Parliament

 “This was actually meant to be a night of celebrations here at the parliament because this is the official end of the eight year bailout, the program of multi-billion dollar loans from the IMF and EU in return for Greece reforming its economy, tightening its belt, cutting wages and pensions.  It’s meant to be a milestone symbolising a new beginning for Greece.  But for many, the fire is the real symbol of what Greece has become after eight years of enforced austerity”.

14:57

Two guys playing Rembetika music

Music

15:31

Trains

ERIC CAMPBELL:  The marks of Greece’s long economic crisis are etched into the streets of Athens. 

15:38

Two guys playing Rembetika music/Decaying Athens GVs/Graffiti

Music

15:45

ERIC CAMPBELL:  Half a million people, from a population of 11 million, have moved abroad in search of jobs.  They’ve left behind a nation crippled by debt, now running at 180 per cent of GDP. Record numbers of

15:51

Tourists at Parthenon

foreign tourists are coming in for a cheap dose of antiquity and sunshine, but austerity will rule the streets for years, stripping the resources of citizens and their State. 

16:12

Campbell with Stathakis

Giorgos Stathakis was economics minister in the left wing Syriza government that swept to power three years ago.

16:26

Super:
Gioros Stathakia
Government Minister

“How much has society been hurt by those eight years of enforced austerity?”

GIORGOS STATHAKIS: “I think it’s been hurt more than any other society with exceptions of world wars.  That is, we’ve had the largest reduction of GDP, 25%, that’s a huge reduction in times of peace.  We had 40% decline of average incomes, wages, salaries, pensions, so the cost was huge”.

16:36

Fireman watching satellite imagery of Athens houses

ERIC CAMPBELL: Emergency services have been hit as hard as any.  Firefighters have had wages steadily cut.  They even have to buy their own uniforms. 

17:10

Fire alarm sounds/Fireman prepare and leave

17:23

This unit is based in a complex that was the pride of the 2004 Athens Olympics.  They weren’t called out until 9 pm, long after the fire had destroyed the town.

17:28

Dimitris Stathopoulos is a senior fire officer and president of the fire fighters’ union.  He says 10 of the station’s 15 trucks are out of action.

DIMITRIS STATHOPOULOS: “This fire car…

17:41

Campbell and Stathopoulos on street

is 43 years old”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: “42 years old… 42 years… 43 years old and still being used”.

DIMITRIS STATHOPOULOS: “This is from the 2004 Olympic Games. We haven’t purchased any new vehicles in Attica since 2004”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: “Uh-huh, and you have trucks that aren’t working now?”

17:58

DIMITRIS STATHOPOULOS: “Right now across Greece, not only at this station, 15% of our trucks are not operational.  Another 15% come and go from the workshops because there’s a lack of spare parts – tyres and various malfunctions”.

18:25

ERIC CAMPBELL:  He says the national fire-fighting budget has been cut by 20% since 2010.

18:48

Stathopoulos

DIMITRIS STATHOPOULOS: “When our equipment is reduced, when our vehicles are reduced, we can’t fulfil our duties”.

18:57

Drone shots. Heavy smoke and line of flames

ERIC CAMPBELL: The blame game started even before Mati stopped smoldering. The heads of the national police and fire brigade were sacked.  The Minister for Public Order resigned.  Some claim that’s not enough, that politicians and EU officials have blood on their hands.

19:04

Konstantopoulou

Zoe Konstantopoulou was Syriza’s Speaker of Parliament and a close ally of Prime Minister Alexis Tspiras until they split over austerity cuts.

19:29

ZOE KONSTANTOPOULOU: “I think it’s very, very clear that austerity measures imposed upon our country have led not just to misery and suffering, but also to deaths. 

19:39

When you remove sovereignty from a country, when you demand that an illegal debt is repaid by the blood of the people -- because this is what has been happening, we’ve been paying with our own blood for a debt that they created. And when I say ‘they’ I am talking about the governments, the Greek governments, but also the European governments, the creditor’s governments and the German and French banks which were those responsible for the larger part of Greece’s so-called current debt”.

19:52

Synolakis

PROFESSOR COSTAS SYNOLAKIS: “Whether there would have been a better outcome if, you know under different circumstances, without the austerity, it’s hard to say”.

20:36

Flames engulfing house

ERIC CAMPBELL: Professor Synolakis says cutbacks were no excuse for the lack of planning or coordination.

20:50

Canadair waterbombing aircraft

He believes they had enough large water bombing aircraft to slow the blaze, they just didn’t send them in time.

21:02

Synolakis

PROFESSOR COSTAS SYNOLAKIS: “I think certainly if we had -- and what my research shows -- is that if we had fire-fighting aircraft

21:11

Canadair waterbombing aircraft

operational, it would have delayed the spread of the fire by at least an hour, an hour and a half - some models even say two.  But I would take just the absolute

21:19

Synolakis

minimum that I found, an hour.  An hour would have been enough to have had an evacuation, to have saved a lot of people”.

21:30

Burnt out houses along clifftop

ERIC CAMPBELL: It wasn’t just the failings on the day that killed so many.  It was government policy stretching back decades.

21:39

Campbell to camera at sealed off house

“Of all the terrible sights here, this unremarkable property that’s now sealed off, is the most awful, because a crowd of people came running through here trying to get to the sea and blinded by smoke they found themselves trapped at the edge with no escape.  Twenty-six people, including parents and their young children, died in each other’s arms”.

21:52

ERIC CAMPBELL: Allegations would later emerge that the property and fence should not have been there.  Like many waterfront homes it was built without permission on public land.

PROFESSOR COSTAS SYNOLAKIS: “This is a unique phenomenon in Southern Europe, where

22:16

Synolakis, Super:
Prof Costas Synolakis
Disaster expert

a lot of beach areas were sort of developed in the '60s and the '70s without planning. 

22:32

Burnt homes and cars

Once the houses are built and the fences are there, then the government comes in and builds roads.  I mean, in reverse.  Unfortunately the wrong way of going about this”.

22:40

Drone shot over houses on clifftop

ERIC CAMPBELL: Illegal construction was tolerated, in part, because the builders paid heavy fines and taxes, income desperately needed in the financial crisis.

22:50

Konstantopoulou. Super
Zoe Konstantopoulou
Former Speak of the Parliament

ZOE KONSTANTOPOULOU: “Let me be also very, very clear; this government which is trying to blame it on those illegal houses, was the government who voted in 2017 a law to legalise all illegal construction. 

23:03

So we’re in an Orwellian environment, I would say, where the wolf is trying to pretend he’s a sheep and where the government is trying to say that it’s day outside while it’s night”.

23:23

Damaged house demolition

ERIC CAMPBELL: The first demolitions of fire damaged houses, many riddled with asbestos are staged as a media event.  The government now says it will demolish more than 3,000 homes built illegally on beach fronts and in forests.

23:46

Spirtzis at demolition

MINISTER CHRISTOS SPIRTZIS: “There was a series of failures for years in urban town planning, in unregulated construction, in that there weren’t enough escape routes”.

24:10

Campbell with Spirtzis at demolition

ERIC CAMPBELL: Greece’s Infrastructure Minister, Christos Spirtzis, concedes austerity has affected fire readiness, but he argues this fire was so extreme no amount of technology could have stopped it.

24:26

Spirtzis at demolition

MINISTER CHRISTOS SPIRTZIS: “Obviously, the phenomena were extreme.  We had winds in excess of 120 kilometres.  It’s also a given that the economic crisis didn’t allow local government or emergency services to be adequately staffed and develop appropriate infrastructure.  So we have a series of chronic failures and coincidences that led to the tragedy we suffered”.

24:40

Tourists at Parthenon

Music

25:13

ERIC CAMPBELL: It’s been a humiliation for a country that prides itself on being a cradle of civilisation.  Greece didn’t just give the world democracy. In mythology, its gods brought forth fire. 

25:22

Mural in Academy of Athens

Music

25:36

Synolakis and Campbell stand beneath mural

ERIC CAMPBELL:  Murals in the Academy of Athens tell the legend of Prometheus, who defied Zeus to give the light of fire and learning to the people.

PROFESSOR COSTAS SYNOLAKIS: “Zeus forgives

25:40

Prometheus, and Hercules goes in and frees him from the mountain, but I don’t think in this particular case Zeus is going to forgive the people who are responsible for what happened in Mati”.

25:51

Music

26:06

Ilias DJs

26:12

ERIC CAMPBELL: Like everyone in this tight-knit community, Ilias Karvonopoulos who we met earlier with the Red Cross, is trying to come to terms with the loss.  A former DJ, he was famous for his parties on his home-made sound system.

26:19

ILIAS KARVONOPOULOS: “Music is my life.  I built this house to look like a disco, to look like a club”.

26:35

ERIC CAMPBELL: But ten of his friends died in the flames.  Music has become his salvation.

26:50

Music

26:56

Ilias interview

ILIAS KARVONOPOULOS: “They will listen to the music upstairs.  They will come.  Yes I think… I want that. I will feel that they will be with us. 

27:01

Ilias mother sits beside speaker

27:18

Ilias plays music

The bad memories we have to forget.  We have to live.

27:21

Ilias interview

I need too much to laugh, to make jokes.  I want that”.

27:28

Chainsaw, cutting down tree

27:41

Shrine in backyard

ERIC CAMPBELL: In the backyard of the fireman Andreas Dimitriou’s home there’s a shrine for his wife Margarita and the son they hadn’t yet named.

27:48

Andreas interview

ANDREAS DIMITRIOU: “I feel a lot of emotions, but I still haven’t felt anger in the sense that I don’t know who to be angry with.  To be angry with God?  To be angry with people?  To be angry with myself? To be angry… I haven’t felt anger because I don’t know where I should direct it.  All the other emotions I feel every day, intensely, except for anger.  At least until now”.

27:59

Blackened trees. Andreas looks out to landscape

ERIC CAMPBELL:  The blackened landscape is a daily reminder of the catastrophe that took them from him.  Still in deep shock, he somehow finds the strength to carry on.

28:34

Andreas

“Well what of your future? Are you going to continue to be a fire fighter?”

ANDREAS DIMITRIOU: “Yes.  For me, it’s the job that was never a job.  It’s a contribution, a vocation.  It’s something that Margarita admired in me.  It’s what I do and I will continue to do.”

28:52

Drone shot along coastline over destruction

ERIC CAMPBELL: All are determined this Greek tragedy will never happen again.

29:17

Credit start

Reporter - Eric Campbell

Producer - Mark Corcoran

Camera - Greg Nelson

Research – Anne Worthington, Eleni Bertes

Editor - Garth Thomas

Additional vision
Hellenic Fire Service
Elia Kallia
Giannis Labropoulos
Hellenic Ministry of National Defence

29:34

Executive Producer - Marianne Leitch

Foreign Correspondent
abc.net.au/foreign

ABC © 2018

30:20

Outpoint after credits

30:34