Another night of hell for the people in the fire-tormented regions: In many places, fires are out of control, new fires are constantly emerging. International aid is increasingly arriving in Greece.
Athens / Rome / Mugla – No end of the conflagrations in southern Europe: In Greece, large parts of the island of Evia and the Peloponnese peninsula are on fire.
In Italy, the emergency services reported around 800 missions across the country due to forest fires on Saturday evening; two people are said to have died in a fire there. In Turkey, too, six fires remained out of control. In many places the red glow of the fire could be seen in the distance at night, it smelled of smoke, it rained ash and there was desolation and despair.
Fire eats its way through pine trees
The pictures from the north of the second largest island of Evia are shocking: the people there fought through the night against the flames with all possible means. Almost 500 firefighters and countless citizens were on duty. The residents tried to cut aisles with tractors and prevent the flames from spreading to their homes. In large parts the power has failed and more and more villages are being evacuated while the fire is eating its way over the island, which is densely forested with pine trees.
The Greek civil defense chief Nikos Chardalias spoke in the evening of two major fire fronts on Evia and an extremely difficult situation across the country. Only in the north of Athens did the situation seem to have eased somewhat recently. However, the emergency services are on high alert because new fires keep breaking up, said Chardalias. In addition to the fire brigade, the military is also deployed there to prevent new major fires.
International aid
Helpers from abroad are also increasingly reaching Greece. Two helicopters and their crew arrived from Egypt on Saturday evening. Aid has also been pledged from Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Great Britain, Qatar and Kuwait. Germany wants to send 200 fire fighters and emergency services from the technical relief organization; On Sunday morning, among other things, almost 60 helpers from North Rhine-Westphalia will make their way to Athens.
The help is urgently needed, the emergency services and the residents of the affected regions are at the end of their tether after more than a week of continuous work. Increasingly, volunteers from other parts of the country are making their way to the crisis areas, for example in Turkey, where, according to the disaster control authority Afad, thousands travel on their own to the fire areas to support the fight against the flames.
Italy also affected
The fire brigade is also in constant use in Italy. She moved more than 180 times on Saturday evening in Sicily alone because of forest fires. The popular holiday island was hardest hit. The rescuers also had more than 100 missions in Calabria in the extreme south of Italy and in Apulia on the Adriatic Sea. In Calabria, the flames blazed in a national park, among other places. The fire brigade also reported two fatalities in the region who were killed in the forest fires. dpa
