·Greece has charged 7 people with arson over blazes that have claimed more than 60 lives.
·The announcement fueled mounting speculation the fires were started by criminal gangs.
·"...so many fires have broken out in so many areas at once is perhaps not a coincidence."

    BEIJING, Aug. 28 (Xinhuanet) -- Greece has charged seven people with arson over blazes that have claimed more than 60 lives and threatened some of Europe's most historic sites, media reported Tuesday. 

    A spokesman for firefighters said seven people have been charged with starting fires and anti-terrorist prosecutor Dimitris Papagelopoulos said he was opening a preliminary investigation into the cause.

Smoke and flames from a forest fire are seen behind the houses of a village in south Peloponnese, about 350 km (217 miles) from Athens, August 26, 2007. Weak zoning laws, careless farmers and smoldering garbage dumps are the main reasons for the forest fires that have killed 63 and destroyed whole rural economies in Greece in recent days, Greenpeace said on Monday. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

    Both announcements fueled mounting speculation that the fires were started by criminal gangs.

    The country is on a disaster footing as more than 30 fires devastated forests in the south and west of the Peloponnese, the peninsula to the south of Athens which has been hit the hardest.

    Firefighters are surrounding the site of Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympic Games, after succeeding on Sunday in preventing the flames from devastating one of Greece's most historic treasures.

    "The fact that so many fires have broken out in so many areas at once is perhaps not a coincidence," Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis said at the weekend.

    Greece goes to the polls for a general election in just three weeks' time that Karamanlis is favored to win.

    (Agencies)

Wildfires still ravaging Greece

    ATHENS, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- A total of 60 new blazes broke out Sunday in Greece and death toll subsequently rose to 63 Monday morning, Greece's Net TV reported.

    "Fires are burning in more than half the country," said fire department spokesman Nikos Diamandis, adding that this is an unprecedented disaster for Greece.

Four arrested in deadly Greek forest fires

    BEIJING, Agu. 27 (Xinhuanet) -- Greek officails said Sunday that they have arrested and charged four individuals in connection with the wildfires that would have destroyed the birthplace of Olympics and alreday killed 60 people in three-day inferno, media reported on Monday.