Devastating wave of fires hits southern Europe
Charred remains of a burned-out car and house in a forest fire near the village of Lampiri, west of Patras, Greece on Saturday, July 31, 2021. AP - Andreas Alexopoulos
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An extreme heat wave is over southern Europe and several countries around the Mediterranean are in the grip of dozens of fires forcing the evacuation of villages and devastating tens of thousands of hectares of forests.
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Fanned by strong winds, fires have been raging for five days near the Turkish seaside resorts of
Bodrum
and Antalya, where dozens of villages and hotels have had to be evacuated.
Turkey has experienced the worst fires in at least a decade, with nearly 95,000 hectares of forests having gone up in smoke since January.
In Greece, it is in the northwest of the Peloponnese, near Patras that firefighters are fighting the flames.
About ten people were hospitalized with respiratory problems and burns, and five villages evacuated.
Almost 13,500 hectares have burned since the start of the year, an average of twice as many as over the past 15 years.
Greece is also facing a historic heat wave, experts say.
The mercury could climb to 46 degrees in the coming days.
After
Sardinia,
which experienced devastating fires last weekend, Italy has recorded in recent days more than 800 fire starts, mainly in the south, in Sicily, in Puglia and in Calabria.
In Spain, finally, a fire was raging this weekend near the San Juan reservoir, about 70 kilometers east of Madrid.
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Natural disasters
Environment
Turkey
Greece
Spain
Italy