Fires turn Greek resort into lunar landscape

ZAKHARO, Greece (Reuters) - Once hugged by lush pine forests along the western coast of Greece's Peloponnese peninsula, the town of Zakharo known for its long sandy beaches now resembles a lunar landscape.

Eerily quiet and covered in a white smoke from the still smoldering woods, Zakharo has lost its biggest attraction, the forest around its coast and the nearby Lake Kaiafas -- a favorite with water skiers, campers and even boy scouts.

Known for organizing international motorbike racing events and other extreme sports, the town has turned into the first camp for those who lost their homes in the huge forest fires that engulfed Greece in the past four days, killing 63 people.

"What is there to do now? My life has been turned upside down," said Panagiotis Panagopoulos, who lost his mother and sister in the flames. "We stood in awe as the flames rose to tens of meters and just scorched everything."

Sitting at his hotel and surrounded by relatives and friends, Panagopoulos said the two women had gone to save their goats just north of the town but had no time to escape the racing flames.

His silent father, sitting near him, nursed burns on his hands, face and feet. He had attempted to retrieve them but it was too late, relatives said.

"There was no time to do anything," his 17-year-old son Thanassis said. "The flames just grew and grew in seconds and we could do nothing. We lost them."

Zakharo and the whole of the western Peloponnese were hard hit with dozens of the casualties in the villages off the coast and huge environmental destruction.

"We were left to die because for days we did not have any help," farmer Takis Theodorakopoulos, 63, said, sitting in a Zakharo cafe.

"We fought a losing battle and in the end we were left with this," he said pointing to the nearby forest of blackened tree trunks. "How do you rebuild that? You can't."