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The first successes in the fight against fires in Greece

2024-08-13 08:53:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

The first successes in the fight against fires in Greece

Fires in Varnava near Athens

The fight against the flames in Greece continues, the firefighters announce the first successes. In the northeast of Athens there are no longer massive fires, but isolated fire foci. The fire disaster caused the first victim.

Even at night, the flames continued to destroy Athens, it was also announced about the first victim. The flames these days reached the suburbs of Athens forcing people from many areas to leave for safe places. Residents of twelve villages were notified via SMS to leave their homes in the region around Marathon and Pentel, a fire brigade spokesman told Greek radio. Earlier, authorities in Greece ordered the evacuation of the endangered historic city of Marathon. 30,000 inhabitants were sent to Nea Makri on the coast. Penteli is located about 15 km and Marathona about 30 km north of Athens.

Prime Minister Mitsotakis interrupts his vacation

For the people evacuated from the fires, the government made available the sports gyms of the Olympic stadium in the North of Athens. Hotels also made rooms available, the hoteliers' association announced.

Due to the dramatic developments, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis cut short his vacation and returned to Athens, as announced by a government spokesman. At night, according to the media, a large number of firefighting teams came to Athens from the southern and western regions of Greece.

The EU and Turkey offer assistance

In the background of the heavy fires in the forests around Athens, Turkey has also declared that it will help the neighboring country: "The necessary preparations are being made to send planes with water pumps and aid helicopters to Greece", declared the spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry. Turkish, Öncü Keceli, on Monday (12.08) evening. Even the EU has declared that Italy, France, the Czech Republic and Romania will send aid teams within the framework of the EU's disaster protection procedure.

Record temperature and no rain for months

In the region of Athens and other parts of central Greece, according to civil protection data, a high risk of fires prevails. also in the coming days, the civil defense communicated. In most regions of Greece, there has been no rain for months.

During the last few days, meteorologists and civil defense have constantly warned of the danger of fires. There are currently strong winds around the Aegean. Therefore, any fire, no matter how small, can spread to large proportions within a few minutes.

Greece this year after having the warmest winter ever recorded, as well as experiencing the hottest June and July since the beginning of temperature measurements in 1960. Greece is extremely vulnerable to forest fires./ DW