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.

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.

(Xinhua News Agency via agencies August 28, 2007)