‘I used to talk to them every day.” Dimitris Petrou takes in the creatures that were once his fluffy chicks but now look like coal. The buckled cage with its carbonised birds are part of the cataclysmic scenery left by the fire that barrelled towards Athens after raging across the Attica plains consuming everything in its path.
The 72-year-old and his wife, Frosso, though red-eyed and fatigued, are “somehow still going”, but they were profoundly shocked, just a few days after flames engulfed everything they owned in Nea Penteli, a suburb of the Greek capital.
“We stayed until we thought we would melt; we did everything we could to save it,” said Dimitris.
The Petrou family are among the untold number of Greeks left homeless by the inferno that began on 11 August…
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Guardian Weekly (Digital) - 1 Issue, 23 August 2024