Despite foreign aid, new fires keep breaking out in southern Europe. The people on the Greek island of Evia are bitter.
Athens / Evia – After a long period of heat and drought, enormous fires are still raging in Greece and Turkey. The Greek island of Evia is particularly hard hit by the fire: in the north of the island, the forest is in flames for miles in some areas. International helpers were sent to the affected areas to support the overburdened emergency services on site. On Sunday (08/08/2021), fire-fighting aircraft and fire-fighting helicopters were also used for the first time – previously this was only the case in other regions in Greece.
Fires in Greece: Fewer residents: inside Euboea than in Athens
Before that, the rescue workers concentrated the extinguishing work on the north of Athens. “We couldn’t be everywhere. Just imagine that the flames in northern Athens had spread to densely populated areas, ”said one firefighter. But the people of Evia feel abandoned. “We were left on fire,” one man told Skai TV. According to the government in Greece, priorities must be set in such a way that people can be saved from the flames first – property and forest only come afterwards.
Around four million people live in the greater Athens area, Euboea has around 220,000 inhabitants. The fires are currently mainly affecting forests on the island. Yet hundreds of houses have already been destroyed. The localities of Ellinika, Vasilika and Psaropouli are now threatened by the flames, so that numerous people from Evacia have already had to be evacuated to protect them from the fire.
Fires in Greece: Significantly more hectares destroyed than in previous years
Since the overland route is cut off by the flames, the emergency services transport the residents: inside with ferries to the mainland. On Sunday morning (08.08.2021) rescue workers had to rescue several people from a beach who were surrounded by the flames. Thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes since the fires in Greece began.
The fires north of the Greek capital Athens have now been extinguished. According to the Greek authorities, a total of 55 fires are currently active, five of them major fires. The severe fires have already destroyed 56,000 hectares of land, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis). In recent years there have been repeated fires in the regions, but on average only 1,700 hectares were devastated in the same period. (tt)
Heading image: © Lefteris Partsalis / dpa
