Victims of last week’s fires in Paphos will start receiving compensation on Wednesday, Agriculture Minister Maria Panayiotou announced on Saturday, following orders from President Nikos Christodoulides.
Panayiotou stated that officers from the agriculture department will be in Polemi at 5 pm on Sunday and in Choulou at 6 pm to collect applications for damages sustained in the fire. She added that the cabinet will approve the first compensation on Wednesday.
Speaking at the visit to Paphos Christodoulides said: “I have decided to visit the affected areas with the relevant ministers, to hear from the heads of the communities, but also from the residents themselves, about the causes that led to these fires, but also about the immediate needs that we as a state must respond to.
First, I want to say that I am pleased with what I have heard from the heads of the communities about the response that has emerged from within the relevant agencies of the Republic to deal with the fires.”
Drone footage from Paphos appears to show that the fire which devasted the Polemi area earlier in the week could have started at an illegal landfill, raising concerns that rampant fly-tipping in the countryside could potentially prove to be a significant danger during heatwaves especially.
The drone footage was posted by the web outlet Paphos Life on YouTube.
In the video it can clearly be seen that on one edge of the landfill, there is no damaged vegetation but from the other three sides, burnt areas fan out in three directions up the slope. This suggests the flames did not sweep through the entire dump as if they would have had the fire originated elsewhere but only spread out from that one point.
Around 13 square kilometres in total was destroyed, according to reports on Friday after the dust had settled and damage recording was completed.
