Can hope be drawn from a tragedy?

A month has passed since the devastating fire hit Mati, the once popular summer holiday suburb of Athens, now a grey landscape with dead trees all around.The facts reflect the extent of the tragedy: 97 people dead and 25 still in hospital.  Over 4,300 acres totally destroyed and, according to public reports, 4,000 houses and buildings damaged. Greek citizens may have gone on their annual leave this month, but they are still angry and bitter about the tragic events in Mati. They wonder whether this disaster could have been avoided.With more efficient state institutions, could we have saved more lives? Is there any hope drawn out of this tragedy?It will probably take many court cases and many years for the experts to come up with an answer or a verdict…a verdict that will go unnoticed by then and unfortunately, will not bring back the dead.I am not an expert to judge if and who should be accountable. However, being involved in a social solidarity initiative following the 2007 wildfires across Greece, I can definitely claim that the state had gone through the ‘learning curve’ and had been equipped with the ‘ammunition’ to prevent such a tragedy from repeating itself.Eleven years ago, the 2007 wildfires struck the Peloponnese, Euboea and the Attica regions, causing a record high disaster: a death toll of 84 people, 270,000 acres of land burned and over 2,000 houses and buildings destroyed. The total cost of the damage was estimated to be around 3.5 billion Euro.Given the extent of the damage at the time, a number of private actors mobilised around initiatives in support of the state, the fire-stricken areas and its people. As head of corporate social responsibility at Eurobank, I was actively involved in the social solidarity programme “It is our Duty”, designed and funded by the John S. Latsis Public Benefit Foundation and our Bank. This 60 million Euro budget programme included a series of actions such as area reconstruction & redevelopment, forest protection initiatives, environmental awareness training, technical and financial support to over 160 NGOs, local authorities, the Fire Brigade, the Agricultural University of Athens, and other voluntary organisations. A team of  25 colleagues from the Bank and the Foundation oversaw the implementation of the programme over four consecutive years; All of us were extremely dedicated to our mission and offered the means to the different beneficiaries, so as to ensure all relevant fire-protection parties involved had what they needed to prevent similar incidents in the future.Were our efforts in vain? Eleven years after, a second and even more tragic disaster strikes. No respect to the memory of the 84 victims that died in 2007. We all remember the tragic story of the five family members who were found burned, embracing each other, outside a village in the Peloponnese - Athanassia Paraskevopoulou, a 37-year-old mother embraced with her four young children.  Yet, this unbearable story was repeated in Mati, only now the dead bodies found embraced were 14 - simple neighbours, waiting for the worst in desperation…So, is there hope in this country? What does it take for things to change? The only hope I can highlight is the increased mobilisation of civic society; volunteers and NGO initiatives who are gradually getting a greater role in such crises. Is this enough to change Greece?Written by Modigliana28/08/18Image courtesy d.kraniotis