The fires that have ravaged Greece in recent days are “under control” on Friday but firefighters remain “on a war footing” in the face of an unpredictable situation which depends in particular on the wind.
For two weeks, the country has been transformed into an oven in the grip of flames: “more than 660 fires recorded”, most quickly extinguished, but of which a dozen “have reached vast proportions, putting everyone to the test” , Minister of Climate Change and Civil Protection Vassilis Kikilias said on Friday.
The main ones declared themselves more than a week ago on the islands of Rhodes, the scene last weekend of a massive operation to evacuate more than 30,000 tourists, from Corfu and Euboea, then in the center from Greece, where fire broke out in the Volos region on the east coast on Wednesday.
“For the moment, we have no fire spreading, the situation is improving, but we remain on a war footing to contain the ongoing fires,” a spokeswoman told AFP. firefighters.
The fire around Volos reached a military barracks near Nea Anghialos, about twenty kilometers from Volos, on Thursday, causing a series of explosions in an ammunition warehouse.
Elektra Grecos was on a beach in the Gulf of Kalamies, not far from the village, from where she could see the clouds of smoke from the fire, not the flames. She still feels “all upside down” as she recalls “the fear that gripped everyone on the beach at the first explosion”, followed by several others “of varying magnitude” for two hours.
“At the first, the whole creek jumped. There was a blast effect… Everyone started calling to find out what was going on,” says this 50-year-old Belgian-Greek, on vacation in the his family’s village, Ano Lechonia, on the other side of Volos.
One of her friends lives in Nea Anghialos and, like 130 other people, left her village “on time”, says Elektra, “relieved”. Thursday afternoon, before the explosions, the firefighters had gone door to door to evacuate the population, warned at dawn by messages asking them to prepare for such an eventuality, she underlines.
Many were evacuated in the evening by boat from the small port of Nea Anghialos, according to the coast guard.
Sometimes there was panic, according to local media footage showing people running towards the harbor with children or animals.
On Friday, the fire in the barracks, about three kilometers from the village, was contained and the inhabitants of Nea Anghialos returned to their homes and shops, with windows blown by the explosions.
In Rhodes, in the Aegean Sea (southeast), firefighters have brought the bulk of the fires under control in the south and east of the island.
In the north of Corfu, in the Ionian Sea (northwest), evacuations also took place at the beginning of the week after a violent fire broke out last weekend.
July will be the hottest month ever recorded on the planet, according to the UN, with heat waves and overheating seas in the northern hemisphere, which led UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to speak of “the boiling era”.
In southern Europe, Greece is particularly affected, even if the mercury, which had climbed to 45°C, with local peaks of 46°C, began to drop on Thursday.
Temperatures will not exceed 37°C on Friday, according to the national weather forecast EMY, which however forecasts strong winds, up to 60km / h, which could fuel the fires.
The latter caused the death of five people, according to the latest government report on Friday, and nearly 50,000 hectares of forest and vegetation were devastated, estimated the Athens Observatory.
They also made a collateral victim: the Minister of Citizen Protection Notis Mitarakis resigned on Friday “for personal reasons”, a departure linked however to vacations taken during these difficult days, according to the Prime Minister’s entourage.
28/07/2023 18:18:00 – Athens (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
