China News Agency, Brussels, August 9th (Reporter De Yongjian) As the wildfires in Greece and other Mediterranean countries continue to raging, the European Union announced on the 9th that it has urgently dispatched about 1,300 firefighters to Greece, North Macedonia and other countries. 14 firefighting aircraft, 3 helicopters and 250 cars were dispatched to help the fire extinguish.
The picture shows the village of Pefki on the island of Evia in Greece was filled with fire and smoke spread over the sea.
The European Commission stated in an announcement on the same day that the current wildfires in Greece and other parts of the Mediterranean are "unprecedented". At the request of Greece, North Macedonia, Albania, Italy, Turkey and other countries, the European Union is providing support through its civil defense mechanism to help them. The country puts out the fire.
The announcement shows that the European Union's manpower and material resources are being "assembled" in Greece, which is the worst hit by the disaster. So far, it has dispatched nearly 1,000 firefighters, 9 aircraft and 200 vehicles to Greece.
Reinforced firefighters came from Cyprus, France, the Czech Republic, Romania, Germany, Poland, Austria, Slovakia and other countries. Reinforced aircraft came from Cyprus, Sweden, France, Croatia, Spain and other countries.
In addition, since last week, France has deployed two firefighting aircraft to the disaster-stricken areas in Italy, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands have deployed two helicopters to Albania, and Slovenia, Bulgaria, Austria and Romania have deployed firefighters and aircraft to North Macedonia. Help Turkey coordinate fire fighting operations.
The announcement stated that the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (Copernicus EMS), an important part of the EU's Global Environment and Safety Monitoring System (Copernicus Plan), has been activated and is sending maps to the disaster relief agencies in Greece and North Macedonia to help assess the fire situation.
The European Commission’s commissioner in charge of crisis management Lenalcic stated in the announcement that due to the simultaneous outbreak of wildfires in multiple countries, the European Union is mobilizing the largest joint firefighting reinforcements in history.
In this difficult period, the EU will fully support Greece, North Macedonia, Albania, Italy, Turkey and other countries, and put the response to wildfires to the EU's important agenda.
Greece and other countries along the Mediterranean Sea frequently have mountain forest fires in summer, but this summer has been extremely severe due to consecutive days of high temperatures.
According to statistics from Greece, there are currently at least 55 fires raging across Greece, burning more than 56,000 hectares of land. Hundreds of families are homeless, and the fires may continue due to strong winds and high temperatures that have not slowed down. a period of time.
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