In Turkey, floods are sweeping entire buildings with them, in Italy old forests are burning, in Spain the heat record is being set – but in a country on the Mediterranean the situation is clearly easing.
Istanbul / Rome / Madrid – devastating floods in Turkey, violent fires in Italy, scorching heat in Spain: millions of people in southern Europe and neighboring regions have been suffering from extreme weather conditions for weeks.
In the floods in northern Turkey, the death toll rose to 58. Numerous people were still missing, said Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu on Saturday evening in the city of Kastamonu. In Italy, around 75 percent more forest and vegetation fires broke out this summer than in the same period last year, as the fire brigade announced. The 2017 heat record was set in Spain.
In the Turkish Black Sea region, heavy rains in the past few days have resulted in the worst flooding in years. The floods tore entire houses with it, and bridges collapsed, as can be seen in pictures. More than 2,000 people were brought to safety in Kastamonu, Sinop and Bartin provinces. According to experts, one factor in the destructive force of the water masses is not only climate change but also the straightening of rivers – such as the narrowing of the Ezine River in the Bozkurt district.
No respite for fire brigades in Italy
In Italy there were a total of 52,584 fire brigade operations from June 15 to August 15, as the “Vigili di fuoco” announced on Sunday. Last year there were 30,106 in the period. This year’s number is comparable to 2017.
Even on Sunday – the Italian holiday Ferragosto – there was no respite for the fire brigade. According to their information, 7,600 men and women were deployed, 6,000 in regular service and 1,600 as reinforcement in view of the situation. They were supported by 15 fire-fighting planes and 14 helicopters.
Most recently there had been violent fires in the southern regions of Calabria, Campania and Molise, on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia and in the vicinity of Rome. Most of them go back to arson, according to media reports. On Saturday, the Carabinieri in Sicily reported the arrest of two cattle breeders, father and son, who wanted to expand their pastureland by flaring thorn bushes and set off a large fire.
The daily newspaper “La Repubblica” reported on Sunday that many centuries-old, culturally and historically significant forests were burning brightly. These include a pine forest near Pescara on the Adriatic, which the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio (1863-1938), who was born there, once sang about. In Cuglieri in Sardinia, a thousand-year-old olive grove was destroyed by the flames. The Aspromonte National Park in Calabria is also badly damaged.
The situation in Greece is easing
In Greece, the situation eased after the massive fires of the past 14 days: Although the fire brigade counted 53 new fires from Saturday to Sunday, none of them got completely out of control by Sunday lunchtime. Some international helpers left – for example a team of Romanian firefighters. German fire fighters and the technical relief agency, however, stayed in the west of the Peloponnese peninsula. The region is under close scrutiny, because smaller fires occur time and again and have to be extinguished.
Spain suffered from a heat wave over the weekend. The historic nationwide temperature record of July 13, 2017 at the airport of Córdoba in Andalusia in southern Spain was set on Saturday with 46.9 degrees in the same place, as the state TV broadcaster RTVE reported. It was blazing hot in the capital Madrid, where temperatures rose to more than 41 degrees.
The holiday island of Mallorca, popular with Germans, reported just over 40 degrees, and it was similarly hot on the Canary Islands off the west coast of Africa. Although the risk of forest fires is extreme, the country has been spared major fires so far this year. In some cases, entering the forests has been banned, for example in Catalonia. dpa
