Greece remains on Tuesday in the grip of the heat wave and the fires which ravage part of the tourist islands of Rhodes, Corfu and Euboea, a situation which its Prime Minister links to climate change.
The fires hit another country around the Mediterranean particularly exposed to global warming, Algeria. At least 34 people died in fires that took the north and east of this country on Sunday.
Other disasters also affected Tunisia, Sicily… In France, Météo-France placed Monday at the highest level of vigilance a department in the South-East, Bouches-du-Rhône, estimating “very high” the risk of fires “compared to summer standards”.
“Fighting the fires will always be difficult because we are living the repercussions of the climate crisis,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriacos Mitsotakis said on Tuesday. “We have a difficult summer ahead of us,” he warned during a council of ministers, the start of which was broadcast live by public television Ert.
In Athens, which has been suffocating for more than a week, the thermometer is expected to climb to 41°C and in the center of the country, temperatures of up to 44°C are expected, according to the national weather forecast EMY.
The country, though accustomed to summer heat waves, is experiencing one of the longest heat waves in recent years, according to EMY experts.
Gythio, in the Peloponnese peninsula (southwest), recorded a peak on Sunday at 46.4°.
The very high temperatures combined with strong winds sometimes reaching 60 km / hour in the Aegean Sea have caused major fires for eight days, which however have not caused any casualties at this stage.
According to estimates by the Greek section of the NGO WWF, 35,000 hectares of forest and vegetation have been destroyed so far in this eastern Mediterranean country.
The fires are particularly devastating on very touristy islands like Rhodes, off the Turkish coast and, at the other end of the country, Corfu, in the Ionian Sea, while the tourist season is in full swing.
About a hundred kilometers from Athens, the south of the large island of Euboea is also partly ravaged by flames, two years after devastating fires in the North.
A fourth fire front worries firefighters near Aigio, in the western Peloponnese.
“Faced with what the Mediterranean, ‘hotspot’ of climate change is facing, there is no magic solution, otherwise we would have applied it”, underlined Tuesday Kyriakos Mitsotakis, assuring that “only a coordinated effort” from the authorities could “reduce the consequences of the climate crisis”.
Solidarity
In Rhodes, where an unprecedented evacuation operation of some 30,000 tourists and locals took place last weekend, more than 266 firefighters are still trying to contain the ongoing blaze for the eighth day, according to firefighters.
In the village of Vati, in the south-east of Rhodes, “it is tragic what is happening”, testifies to AFP Vassilis Kalabodakis, president of the town overflown by two Canadair and a helicopter.
“The village has been ordered to evacuate but we cannot abandon it,” he assures us, under a rain of ashes. “We are leading the fight to protect our place”.
In the north of the island, volunteers bring aid to foreign tourists evacuated on Saturday, who are now camping in a school. Nearly 200 are still housed there.
“We immediately mobilized school staff and dozens of volunteers came forward to help,” school director Kyriakos Kyriakoulis told AFP.
“The scale of solidarity exceeds our expectations,” he adds.
“I can’t believe they are so kind, they give so much […]. I am very moved, ”said Christine Moody, a 69-year-old Briton, for the first time on vacation in Greece.
At the other end of the country, in northern Corfu, where around 2,500 people had to leave their homes as a preventive measure overnight from Sunday to Monday, 62 firefighters, a helicopter and two water bombers are fighting the fire, according to firefighters.
Near the town of Karystos in southern Evia, 93 firefighters and two water bombers are hard at work.