Fires have been blazing in Greece for days. The situation on Rhodes has now drastically worsened. Crowds of tourists flee the thick plume of smoke.
Rhodes – Southern Europe has been struggling with heat and drought for days. With temperatures around 40 degrees Celsius, sometimes above, Spain is “melting”, the hospitals in Italy are overcrowded. Above all, the risk for humans and animals from dangerous forest fires increases enormously. As early as June, many feared that the drought and heat could affect summer vacations.
Due to ongoing forest fires and strong winds, thousands of tourists on the Greek island of Rhodes have now had to be evacuated. According to experts, the extreme situation could last longer.
Greece is struggling with the “most difficult fire” – thousands of tourists on Rhodes evacuated
The forest fires that have been raging for three days on the holiday island of Rhodes, which is also popular among German holidaymakers, got out of control on Saturday afternoon (July 22nd). According to local media, several hotels and guesthouses in the south-east of the island had to be evacuated.
The state radio reported in a special on Saturday evening that 8,000 people had left the south of the island, which is popular with tourists, by land. The number could be even higher, it said. A spokesman for the fire brigade had previously announced that 2,000 people had been brought to safety by boat from the coasts south of Lindos. How many people fled overland was not yet known from official sources on Saturday evening.
“It is the most difficult fire we have to deal with,” a spokesman for the Greek Fire Service told the Athens TV station Skai. Affected are hotels on the Kiotari coast, which is around 55 kilometers south of Rhodes town. “The smoke is so strong that you can hardly breathe,” the broadcaster quoted the Vice Mayor of Rhodes, Konstantinos Traraslias.
The reason the fires got out of control was the high temperatures and drought, as well as strong winds. According to Greek information, force six winds were blowing on Rhodes. 38 degrees Celsius were also measured in some cases.
Twitter videos show devastating forest fires on Rhodes: people are fleeing in droves
According to the information, the evacuated people are being taken to the southern small town of Gennadi. There they are accommodated in other hotels. Like many other of the numerous Greek islands, Rhodes lives almost exclusively from tourism. For every 150,000 inhabitants come loud Deutschlandfunk around 2.5 million tourists a year – many of them travel from Germany to spend their holidays here.
Videos on Twitter show crowds, mostly tourists, carrying suitcases to flee the thick plume of smoke. According to one user, many fled their hotels. The video recordings are wrapped in a reddish filter. It is currently unknown to what extent the forest fires could affect planned vacation trips that are due in the next few days.
A similar situation claimed around 1,300 lives in Greece in 1987
“We have even more difficult times ahead of us,” said a spokesman for the Greek fire brigade on state television on Saturday. The risk of fire is far from over. Large areas of forest also recently burned near Athens, the fire there and fires on the Peloponnese peninsula have been brought under control for the time being, but could flare up again due to the drought.
To make matters worse, the current heat wave could probably last a little longer. Next Wednesday a new peak with temperatures around 46 degrees is to be reached in southern Greece. “If things continue like this, this hot spell could be the longest since measurements began in Greece,” estimates one of the leading Greek meteorologists Konstantinos Lagouvardos.
In July 1987, a similar heat wave in Greece killed an estimated 1,300 people. Meanwhile, experts see the persistent droughts and increasing forest fires as a direct result of climate change. (rku/dpa)
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