VIDEO. Fires ravage southern Turkey, tourists and residents evacuated

Turkey is currently experiencing its worst fires in at least a decade.

Firefighters have been fighting forest fires in the south of the country for five days.

Six people were killed and more than 300 injured, according to the official Turkish agency Anadolu.

On Sunday, dozens of villages and hotels were evacuated, including in the upscale Turkish resort of Bodrum, as the flames were fanned by strong winds from the neighboring district of Milas, CNN Turkey reported.

Without being able to take the road, 540 people were evacuated by boat, according to the channel.

In the tourist town of Antalya, other evacuations also took place, according to the channel NTV.

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"We have contained 107 of the 112 forest fires," Bekir Pakdemirli, the Turkish Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, said in a tweet.

According to official data, nearly 95,000 ha have gone up in smoke since January, against an average of 13,516 at this stage of the year between 2008 and 2020. Temperatures are expected to remain high after records reached last month.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was the target of criticism when it turned out that Turkey did not have water bombers as the fire problem worsened in the country with a third of its territory. wooded.

The main opposition party, the CHP (Republican People's Party, Social Democrat), accused the Turkish president of having dismantled the infrastructure of a semi-public organization which held water bombers.