Editorial: Not a single apology, not a single resignation

The government hastened to support measures to support the families of our fellow human beings who have been afflicted by wildfires, obviously believing that it can cover up part of its responsibility.

Undoubtedly, those who managed to survive need support, but they must first learn what happened to their relatives.

We have not yet learned the number of victims. The dead have not yet been identified. We still do not know how many missing persons there are. Parents are still searching for their children and nobody can tell them what has happened to them.

As much money as the government may hand out, the responsibility for the outcome of this endless tragedy awaits them. It is beyond any logic that nobody offered a single apology, that nobody felt a need to resign, that the prime minister himself did not sack someone of those who were responsible but acted irresponsibly, even for the sake of appearances.

It is not possible to be mourning so many dead and for no one to be blameworthy, for nobody to assume even the political responsibility for what should have been done and was not.

It is obvious that there are people who did not do the job that had been entrusted to them properly. As extreme as weather conditions may have been, and as many mistakes were made in this specific region in the past, it is obvious that there was great negligence and omissions.

There were mistakes in planning, in coordinating, and in informing, and the result was tragic. Authorities had a duty to know that if the wildfire crossed Marathonos Avenue, the tragedy would be unavoidable.

Having failed to set up a line of defence, they did not even take the trouble to inform and direct thousands of trapped citizens.

This time, we searched to find who is responsible, and all we saw were ridiculous conferences of officials aiming at communications management.

Any benefits handed out cannot be an excuse for lost lives, for families that were destroyed in one afternoon, and for the homes that were destroyed.