Forest fires threatens the main Greek city while Heat waves seize Europe

A large city in western Greece is threatened by rapidly evolving forest fires, because extreme heat and strong winds lead fulaux in a large part of southern Europe.

The strong winds pushed the flames on the outskirts of Patras, the third city in the country with a population of around 200,000 inhabitants, forcing evacuations, including a children’s hospital, and the sending of smoke plumes through the horizon line.

Nearly 10,000 hectares burned in the surrounding Achaia region in two days.

Whole villages have been emptied, destroyed houses and companies and hundreds of incinerated vehicles, including more than 500 cars in a customs courtyard.

The streets of Patras were deserted on Wednesday, with the exception of certain residents who look in silence while the fires descended from the surrounding mountains.

Strong and hot winds have blown while temperatures reach 38 ° C and smoke covered the city, sending the hospital with breathing difficulties.

The authorities ordered residents of a city close to 7,700 people to evacuate on Tuesday and new alerts were issued Wednesday for two villages.

Elsewhere in Greece, dozens of people were saved by coast guard while fires spread towards the beaches of the islands of Zante and Chios.

Greece has asked the EU bombers of water to strengthen the more than 4,800 firefighters who attack more than 20 forest fires that are currently raging across the country.

The crisis came into heat covers in southern Europe, causing Portugal flames to the Balkans.

In Spain, a civilian and a volunteer firefighter were killed on Wednesday during the tenth consecutive day of extreme heat of the country, which culminated at 45 ° C the day before.

The state meteorological agency warned that almost all of Spain was at an extreme or very high risk. The heat wave should last until Monday, making it one of the longest in the country ever recorded.

The fires triggered a political row after the Minister of Transport, Oscar Puente, said that “things become a little hot” in Castile and León, where the flames threatened a Roman World Heritage site and forced more than 6,000 people to flee.

His remark, aimed at the conservative chief of the region for the holidays during the crisis, aroused the condemnation of opposition personalities, who demanded his dismissal. Puente defended her comments, saying that leaders absent during disasters should be held to count.

The authorities say that 199 forest fires destroyed nearly 99,000 hectares at the national level this year – the total double last year in mid -August – with several epidemics suspected of being a criminal fire.

In neighboring Portugal, 1,800 firefighters were deployed against five major flames, one of which in the east of the city of Transcoso, revived by lightning.

In Albania, the Minister of Defense described him as a “critical week” while 24 forest fires burned, forcing residents of the central villages.

Italy has mastered a five -day fire in Vesuvius but remains under extreme heat warnings in 16 cities, Florence affecting 39C. The temperatures are so high that Pope Leo moved his weekly audience of Saint-Pierre to an inner place of the Vatican.

Great Britain has entered its fourth heat wave of summer, the temperatures forecast at 34 ° C and health officials warning against care services.

Meteorologists say that such extremes are becoming more and more frequent and intense due to climate change induced by humans.