Cyprus: 4 found dead in 'most destructive' forest blaze

Cyprus search crews discovered the bodies of four people outside a fire-swept mountain village yesterday in what a government minister called the "most destructive" blaze in the east Mediterranean island nation's history.

Interior Minister Nicos Nouris said that Civil Defense volunteers discovered the remains just outside the village of Odou on the southern edge of the Troodos mountain range.

"We are experiencing the most destructive fire since the founding of the Cyprus republic in both material damage, but also unfortunately in terms of human lives," Nouris said.

Authorities believe the bodies belong to four Egyptian laborers who had gone missing on Saturday evening. Nouris said he has informed the Egyptian ambassador to Cyprus and that arrangements will be made to repatriate the remains.

President Nicos Anastasiades called the fire "an unprecedented tragedy" except for the destruction wreaked by a 1974 war that split the island along ethnic lines after Turkey invaded in response to a coup aimed at union with Greece.

The blaze, which began on Saturday afternoon outside the village of Arakapas, forced the evacuation of at least eight mountain villages, destroyed several homes, and has so far scorched 55 square kilometers of pine forest and orchards.