Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek prime minister, has praised rescue workers for their “titanic battle” to contain wildfires in Greece and Turkey. Eleven regions of Greece face a “very high risk” of fire, and the government has appealed for help from EU partners to deal with fires burning on multiple fronts. Emergency services reported that fires around Messinia in the south-west Peloponnese and on the popular island of Kythera had not been contained. Authorities were also battling flare-ups on the islands of Evia and Crete.
The destruction in Kythera was described as “incalculable” by public broadcaster ERT, with the island’s deputy mayor describing everything from houses to beehives to olive trees as burnt. Czech firefighters and Italian water-bombers joined emergency teams in Greece, while 139 people, including tourists trapped on a beach, were rescued by the coast guard.
In Turkey, a record temperature of 50.5 C was registered in the province of Åžirnak, with more than 1,700 people forced to flee their homes after wildfires barrelled towards Bursa, the country’s fourth-largest city. More than 1,100 firefighters were battling the flames, with authorities saying that at least 76 blazes had broken out within a 24-hour period. Ten of the victims were rescue volunteers and forestry workers killed in a fire in the west of the country.
