In Algeria, Italy, and Greece, forest fires have claimed more than 40 lives, and thousands of people have been evacuated from resorts and coastal villages, writes the BBC.
Greece plans to continue evacuations from the island of Rhodes, and the flames have also engulfed the islands of Corfu and Evia. Fires have also forced the evacuation of thousands of people in Sicily and the Puglia region. Strong winds and dry vegetation mean that extinguishing and containing the flames is difficult.
The worst impact was caused by the fires in Algeria – 34 people died, including ten soldiers who participated in rescue and evacuation operations in the coastal region.
The Algerian authorities have reported that since Sunday, the 23rd of July, 80% of the fires have been brought under control,
but the extinguishing work is still ongoing. The fire also affected Tunisia, where 300 residents were evacuated from the coastal village of Mellula.
In Greece, on Wednesday, the 26th of July, the Ministry of Civil Defense warned of “extreme danger” in six of the country’s 13 regions.
Two pilots were killed when a Canadair firefighting plane crashed into a gorge
during firefighting operations on the island of Evia, north of Athens.
More than 20 thousand tourists have been evacuated from the island of Rhodes in recent days. The representative of the airport told the AFP news agency that from the 23rd of July to the 25th of July, more than 5,000 people went home on emergency flights. The tourism industry provides one out of every five jobs in Greece, and tourism is particularly important to Rhodes and the other islands.
Italy, meanwhile, is ravaged by radically different forms of extreme weather –
deadly storms in the north of the country and scorching heat and fires in Sicily and the south of the country.
A couple in their 70s was found dead in a holiday home near Palermo, and an 88-year-old woman also died in fires.
In Catania on the 24th of July, the temperature reached 47.6 degrees Celsius, and the energy supply and water supply were interrupted. In Calabria, a 98-year-old man was trapped in a burning house and his daughter and son-in-law suffered burns trying to save the old man.
2,000 people were evacuated on the Adriatic coast when the flames in the nearby national park began to threaten Vieste. Lombardy and other northern regions were hit by storms and gusts of up to 30.5 meters per second.
On the morning of the 26th of July, flames also broke out on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, which belongs to France. Gusts of wind fanned the flames, and within hours three villages were threatened.
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