Rhodes, Greece. The Greek authorities evacuated early this Monday as a precaution almost 2,500 people from the north of the island of Corfu, in a country “at war” against several fires fueled by the heat wave.
The evacuees join the more than 30,000 tourists who were forced to flee the island of Rhodes this weekend for the same reason.
Greece is “at war against (…) the fires,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Monday before Parliament.
“We still have three difficult days ahead of us” due to the high temperatures, he warned.
The Mediterranean country is affected by one of the longest heat waves in recent decades, with temperatures reaching 46ºC on Sunday, which has caused several forest fires.
The fire in the north of the island of Corfu in the Ionian Sea (northwest), very frequented by tourists, forced the “preventive evacuation of 2,466 people” overnight on Sunday, spokesman Yannis Artopios said on Monday.
The authorities sent an alert message to the mobile phones of residents and vacationers in numerous towns asking them to leave “as a precaution their (place of) residence,” he explained.
The fire broke out on Sunday and continues to burn in a forest, where on Monday “62 firefighters supported by two helicopters and two water bombers” were fighting the flames, according to the fire service.
In Rhodes (southeast), more than 266 firefighters are working to contain the fire in the south and west of that island in the Dodecanese archipelago in the Aegean Sea, where more than 32,000 tourists were evacuated over the weekend in “the largest operation” of this type “ever carried out in Greece”.
Hundreds of tourists, mostly British, German and French, waited at Rhodes international airport on Sunday for a flight home, while several airlines grounded their flights to the island.
Two helicopters and two water bombers resumed operations on Monday to support firefighters on this island, one of Greece’s most popular tourist destinations.
“Walking Without Rest”
Kelly Squirrel, a British tourist, said the police ordered the evacuation of the Rhodes hotel where she was staying.
“We had to walk non-stop. We walked for about six hours in the heat,” he told AFP, after arriving at the international airport.
Another tourist, Kevin Sales, described a “terrible” situation. “We had to lend a woman clothes because she had nothing to wear,” said this English engineer.
Other sources of fire were still active on Monday in Agios, north of the Peloponnese, in Caristo, south of the island of Euboea, and in Boeotia, a region north of Athens.
Many regions remained on Monday in “red alert”, that is to say, in “extreme danger” of forest fires, declared a person in charge of the press office of the fire brigade.
Greece registered a slight drop in temperature on Monday before a new heat wave from Tuesday, according to the national meteorological service.
On Wednesday, the temperature will reach 44ºC and “thunderstorms are expected in the center and west of the country, before a drop of 6 to 8ºC”, according to EMY.
