A firefighter watches a fire near the village of Vathi in the southern Greek island of Rhodes. Photo: SPYROS BAKALIS
The swaths of southern Europe are on high alert as wildfires continue to rage amid sweltering heat across the continent.
In connection with the evacuation from the Greek island of Rhodes, vacationers are faced with the need to decide whether to continue their trips or cancel them.
Tens of thousands of tourists have already interrupted their holidays due to heat waves in recent weeks, with temperatures reaching 47.6°C in Sicily on Monday, close to the continental record of 48.8°C in August 2021, also recorded on the Italian island. .
Experts have linked the unusually warm period experienced last month to human-caused climate change and have warned that heatwaves will get hotter and more frequent if the world continues to burn fossil fuels.
Last year, heatwaves killed more than 61,600 people in 35 European countries and sparked devastating wildfires.
Use our tool to find out if your holiday destination is at risk this summer.
Greece wildfire danger levels: find a holiday destination Greece
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told Parliament Greece The country was «at war» on Monday as wildfires raged on several islands, including Rhodes and Corfu.
Temperatures are expected to hit 41 C in the capital city of Athens on Wednesday and up to 44 C in the central parts of mainland Greece, according to the EMY national forecaster.
2507 Rhodes forest fires
Devastating forest fires are raging in Rhodes. seven days in a row, which led to a mass evacuation of tourists.
Some 20,000 people were forced to flee their homes and island over the weekend as fires that started a week ago spread to coastal resorts in southeastern regions, charring land and damaging buildings.
Officials. said that the threat of new fires is high in almost all regions of the country.
2507 Forest fire in Corfu in detail
The forest fire also caused evacuations from the island of Corfu over the weekend.
Nearly 2,500 people have received asylum, including in stadiums, although many returned to their hotels on Monday.
The island's deputy mayor said on Monday that arsonists were to blame for the fires.
2607 Wildfire risk, Crete, Greece
Greece's Civil Protection Agency on Tuesday declared the island a red alert due to extreme heat. The warning places Crete in the category of the highest forest fire risk, along with Rhodes.
Rethymno, Heraklion and the Lassithi region have been identified as areas of extreme fire danger, which means increased monitoring and response preparedness. to emergencies.
2607 Evia Greece
Emergency services were also fighting fires on the island of Evia, east of Athens, where a fire-fighting aircraft crashed on Tuesday. hillside and caught fire.
He was among at least three other aircraft fighting the fire, along with about a hundred firefighters.
Italy
Forests and vegetation raged across various parts of Calabria, the southernmost part of mainland Italy, on Tuesday, and Palermo Airport reopened on Tuesday after wildfires in Sicily forced it to close for several hours.
Meanwhile, authorities declare 16 cities on high alert due to high temperatures.
2,607 bushfires in Sicily, Italy
These include the capital city of Rome, as well as Palermo and Catania in Sicily, where power and water outages have increased in recent days, for which local authorities partly blamed the heat.
2,707 bushfires in Portugal
A wildfire in the mountainous region of Cascais, a popular Portuguese holiday destination near the capital Lisbon, is under control, but authorities have said firefighters will remain on the ground to avoid re-ignition.
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Civil Protection Commander Elicio Oliveira said on Wednesday that the fire no longer posed a danger to the public, but urged people, especially motorists, to avoid the area.
The fire started at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday in the unit Natural Park of Sintra-Cascais with an area of about 145 sq. km (56 sq mi) west of Lisbon.
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