The fight against the flames in the Mediterranean area continues. Dramatic scenes take place again on the Greek island of Evia. At the same time, a new heat wave threatens.
Athens / Rome / Istanbul – The fight against the fires in the Mediterranean is not over yet. On the Greek island of Evia, dramatic scenes took place on Monday evening, where it burned for the eighth night in a row.
Hundreds of volunteers arrived in front of the village of Kamatriades in the early evening to form a human chain with the residents and firefighters against the wall of flames that was approaching the place. TV pictures showed large groups of young men with rucksacks and masks lined up.
No electricity or water supply
In addition to Kamatriades, the localities of Istiaia and Avgaria in the same region were evacuated. Electricity and water supply failed in the fire areas, the fire brigade had to deliver the water in fire trucks. Many of the helpers were only armed with twigs to beat out the approaching flames. Fire-fighting planes and helicopters cannot fly in the dark.
The Greek government wants to completely reorganize civil defense as a result of the severe fires in the country. “In the future, the focus will be on prevention, not reaction,” said Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in a televised address on Monday evening. The construction plan – also for the afforestation, which is to take place according to the latest findings – will be directly subordinated to the Prime Minister.
Athens: € 500 million in aid
Athens wants to cope with the rapid reconstruction of burned houses and industrial buildings as well as the aid for other fire damage to the citizens with a special budget of 500 million euros. Help for the people should be provided unbureaucratically via an online platform. The determination of the damage had already started on Monday morning in the north of Athens.
In the past few days, 586 fires broke out across the country, Mitsotakis said. He did not want to take the climate as an excuse for the course of the fires, said the prime minister. But it is very much the reason for the severe fires: “It is obvious that the climate crisis is knocking on the door of the planet.”
Fighting fires in Italy
In Italy, civil protection continues to receive numerous requests from the Italian regions for air support in the fight against forest fires. The fire-fighting planes and helicopters mostly flew over burning areas in southern Italian Calabria, on the island of Sicily and in Lazio, where the capital Rome is also located, as the civil protection authority announced in Rome in the evening. The fire brigade brought five fires under control or extinguished them.
The civil protection authority reiterated that the majority of the fires were triggered by careless behavior or willful intent. A commander of the Carabinieri unit for forest protection told the Ansa news agency on Monday that there are currently 70 fires raging in Italy, mainly in Puglia, Sicily and Calabria. Due to the extreme heat, high alert applies for Tuesday and Wednesday. In Sicily and Sardinia, disaster control reckoned up to 45 degrees Celsius in some cases.
Situation relaxes a bit in Turkey
The situation in Turkey has eased somewhat in the meantime. According to official information, three fires are still not under control in the south-west of the country, but residential areas are no longer threatened for the time being. Because the situation in Greece is currently worse, two fire-fighting planes will be sent to the neighbor, said Forest Minister Bekir Pakdemirli on Monday evening.
Experts in Turkey continue to urge caution. It should also be very hot and dry in the next few days. The risk of fire remains high. dpa
