2023-07-25 14:48:55
Brushfires fueled by intense heat and winds forced further evacuations on the Greek islands of Corfu, Rhodes and Euboea on Tuesday, where a tanker plane crashed this morning battling the flames.
A rapidly spreading blaze near the town of Aigio, in mainland Greece, also mobilized dozens of firefighters who had to fight these fires in temperatures of more than 40°C and winds of nearly 60 km / h which literally caused the flames to run through the groves and dried out vegetation.
This heat wave, the third experienced by Greece this summer, caused the mercury to rise to 46.4 ° C on Sunday in Gythio, in the Peloponnese peninsula.
Tens of thousands of people, including more than 30,000 tourists, had to leave Greece in disaster over the weekend, forced to the beaches of the island of Rhodes to escape the rapidly advancing fires. The situation was still difficult on Tuesday at Rhodes International Airport, where hundreds of tourists are trying to find flights home.
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The flames continue to wreak havoc on the island of Rhodes.
Photo: Archyde.com / Lefteris Damianidis
In the north of the island, the army and volunteers are helping evacuated foreign tourists who are now camping in schools, community centers and gymnasiums.
The most recent evacuations – around 2,500 people – were ordered on the islands of Corfu and Euboea on Tuesday while in Rhodes, the flames, pushed by the winds, crossed the lines of defense erected by firefighters.
Air tanker crash
On the island of Evia, a CL-215 air tanker crashed on Tuesday morning while battling flames near Platanisto in the south of the island, the Greek fire service confirmed. At least two people were on board the aircraft.
Footage broadcast by state television shows the plane flying low and then disappearing into a canyon before a fireball is seen moments later.
The two pilots who were in the aircraft died, the Greek Ministry of Defense announced shortly after the crash.
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A Canadair plane crashed battling flames in Greece.
Accustomed to summer heat waves, Greece has to deal with exceptional heat waves this year. On average, 50 new wildfires have broken out daily in the past 12 days in the country, according to government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis. On Sunday, 64 new fires were recorded.
According to estimates by the Greek section of the NGO World Wildlife Fund, 35,000 hectares of forest and vegetation have been destroyed so far in this eastern Mediterranean country.
We are at war, completely focused on the fires. In the days and weeks to come, we must remain on constant alert.
Faced with what the Mediterranean, “hotspot” of climate change, is facing, there is no magic solution, otherwise we would have applied it, underlined Tuesday Kyriakos Mitsotakis, assuring that only a coordinated effort from the authorities could reduce the consequences of the climate crisis.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has also offered additional aid to Greece on Sunday to deal with these fires and the effects of climate change.
The entire Mediterranean basin affected by heat waves
It is not only in Greece that abnormally high heat causes disasters. In fact, the entire Mediterranean basin is affected by these repeated heat waves.
Large forest and brush fires are reported in mainland Italy, Sardinia, Sicily as well as Tunisia and Algeria, where 34 people have lost their lives since Sunday in the north and east of the country. In France, the degree of flammability of forests is extremely high in the south of the country.
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Greek firefighters have had to fight the flames with outside temperatures exceeding 40°C for more than a week.
Photo: afp via getty images / SPYROS BAKALIS
Fighting the fires will always be difficult, as we are experiencing the repercussions of the climate crisis, Prime Minister Mitsotakis warned during a council of ministers broadcast live on Greek public television.
He estimated that in the future the situation will even get worse with higher temperatures, more drought, stronger winds, while the country’s geological conditions make it more difficult to fight fires.
We still have a difficult summer ahead of us, warned Kyriakos Mitsotakis, stressing that the authorities will be in absolute vigilance.
With information from Agence France-Presse and Associated Press
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