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Heat wave sweeps over the Mediterranean: forest fires rage in tourist areas - hotels and villages evacuated

2021-08-01T20:11:30.357Z


Parts of southern Europe are being overwhelmed by a heat wave, with raging fires in many places. That is how dramatic the situation is in Italy, Greece and Turkey.


Parts of southern Europe are being overwhelmed by a heat wave, with raging fires in many places.

That is how dramatic the situation is in Italy, Greece and Turkey.

Munich - Southern Europe is currently struggling with an extreme heat wave - which has serious consequences for many tourist areas as well.

Heavy forest bands are raging in several regions of the Mediterranean.

Turkey, Italy and Greece are particularly affected.

Dozens of hotels and villages were again evacuated in southern Turkey, and residents and tourists also had to be brought to safety in the Greek Peloponnese.

Italy reported over 800 fires, including 250 in Sicily alone.

According to EU data, the fire season this year is significantly more devastating than usual.

Heat wave in southern Europe is endless

Extreme drought, strong winds and temperatures of well over 30 degrees cause devastating forest fires in southern Europe every summer.

Since Friday, Greece in particular has suffered from another heat wave with temperatures between 42 and 44 degrees.

Experts see this as another sign of climate change.

And the heat never ends: According to the DWD, temperatures around 40 degrees will also be reached in parts of Greece in the next few days.

Numerous other southern European countries are currently affected by the heat wave.

According to the meteorologist Clemens Grohs, the Italian population is even threatened by record temperatures of up to 50 degrees.

While temperatures of 39 degrees have been measured in Sicily in the past few days and 40 degrees in Bari, southern Italy, the north of the country is currently experiencing severe thunderstorms.

Forest fires in Turkey - numerous evacuations

In particular, Turkey is currently feeling the effects of the heat and drought.

The flames are fanned again and again by strong winds.

In the popular holiday resort of Bodrum, according to the broadcaster CNN Türk, an entire neighborhood was evacuated, 540 people had to be brought to safety by boat because the streets were no longer usable.

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Two men flee the fires in Bodrum, Turkey.

© Ismail Coskun / dpa

According to NTV, there were also evacuations in the resort of Antalya.

Two bodies were recovered there on Sunday.

The death toll since the fires started five days ago has risen to eight.

107 of 112 fires are now under control, said Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Bekir Pakdemirli.

In the tourist regions of Antalya and Mugla, however, they continued to rage.

For Turkey it is the worst fires in a decade.

Serious forest fires also in Greece

In Greece, 300 firefighters continued to fight several fires in the Peloponnese on Sunday.

According to civil defense, 58 fires had broken out on the peninsula since Saturday, but most of them were quickly brought under control.

Around 20 houses were destroyed and eight people were injured.


Five villages near the city of Patras had to be evacuated.

Almost a hundred residents and tourists were also brought from the small seaside resort of Loggos to the nearby town of Egio.

The mayor of the village of Egialia spoke of a "tremendous disaster".

"We slept outside overnight, we were so scared that we would not have a house when we wake up," a resident of the village of Labiri told the Skai broadcaster.

800 fires over the weekend in Italy - criminal machinations as a contributory cause?

The Italian fire brigade counted over 800 fires over the weekend, including in the southern regions of Apulia, Calabria and Campania as well as in central Italian Lazio with Italy's capital Rome.

Most of the fires broke out on the island of Sicily, which is popular with tourists.

There the fire brigade continued to fight fires near Catania, Palermo and Syracuse on Sunday.


The Coldiretti farmers' union has counted around 300 forest fires in Sicily since the beginning of the year.

She suspects that not only heat and drought are responsible for the large number, but also criminal machinations.

(

spl with dpa

)

List of rubric lists: © Ismail Coskun / dpa

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2021-08-01

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