Greece's wildfires have resulted in the discovery of eighteen dead in the country's forests
According to the first reports, it appears as though those who passed away were migrants. A medical examiner and a team of investigators are currently en route to the scene in the Dadia woodland.
Several flames have wreaked havoc on the Evros region of north-eastern Greece, which is not too far from the border with Turkey.
An evacuation was necessary at a hospital located in the city of Alexandroupolis.
Patients in intensive care units and those who had just given birth were among those transferred overnight to a vessel at the port.
An earlier fatality, which was also suspected to have been that of a migrant, had been recorded in a village adjacent to the seaside city, and emergency officials had sent mobile text messages to the neighboring districts requesting people to evacuate the area.
It is believed that fires have been swiftly spreading in the Dadia national park since Monday. The park is a big forested area that is located to the north of Alexandroupolis.
According to the reports, the fire department discovered the 18 bodies on Tuesday outside a hut outside of the village of Avantas while inspecting the charred remnants of a house.
Given that there had been no reports of missing citizens, the spokesman for the fire department, Yiannis Artopios, stated that an investigation was being conducted to determine whether or not it was possible that the victims had entered Greece illegally.
According to unconfirmed accounts, the remains were found grouped together in two different locations, and there was concern that the total number of fatalities could rise. The fire department reported that investigations were still taking place throughout the region where the fire had spread.
The region around the Evros River has emerged as one of the most popular entry points into the European Union for refugees and migrants from Syria and other parts of Asia who are traveling from Turkey. It's common knowledge that migrants use the Dadia woodland as a passageway to get to their destination.
Yiannis Artopios emphasized that messages of urgent importance had been transmitted to all mobile phones in the region, even those connected to international networks.
Fires are raging in other parts of Greece, fueled by strong winds and temperatures that were forecasted to reach 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit) on Tuesday.
The fire department has requested that tens of thousands of residents in the Ano Liosia neighborhood in northwestern Athens evacuate certain areas of the neighborhood.
When a fire broke out close to a monastery on the slopes of Mount Parnitha a few kilometers to the north, it was alleged that hundreds of nuns were trapped within the building.
In addition, some settlements on the island of Evia and in the region of Boeotia in the center of Greece have been evacuated.
In the early hours of Tuesday, a blazing red glow could be seen on the outskirts of Alexandroupolis, while satellite photographs showed that numerous regions of Greece were enveloped in dense smoke.
During the night, residents of eight neighboring villages were given the order to evacuate their houses and make their way to the city for safety. Later on Tuesday, as the vegetation near the coast continued to burn, a steady stream of cars could be observed travelling in that direction.
During the process that was taking place to evacuate the location on the north-eastern outskirts of Alexandroupolis, flames could be seen invading the grounds of the university hospital. Officials in Greece gave the order to remove approximately 115 patients, which resulted in a fleet of ambulances and buses being dispatched.
The Adamantios Korais is a ferry that has been requisitioned to look after intensive care patients and new-born babies. Some of the patients were relocated to other hospitals in the city, while as many as 90 were taken to the ferry.
Rhodope, which is located dozens of kilometers to the north-west of the city, as well as Kavala, which is located farther west along the coast, have also been experiencing fires.
A number of warehouses in an industrial district in Aspropyrgos became engulfed in flames, and the air near the Attica Highway became thick with pungent smoke. This occurred to the west of the capital city.
According to statements made by two Albanian workers to the BBC, the blaze could have been extinguished successfully if helicopters had arrived when they did.
On Tuesday at lunchtime, a second major fire broke out on the other side of the highway near the community of Fyli. This one was on the opposite side of the road. After another half an hour, people received a message on their mobile phones from the emergency number 112 instructing them to leave the area.
A few kilometers outside of Fyli, to the north-west of Athens, the fire also extended near to the historic Kleiston monastery of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary.
According to officials from the fire department, the monastery is home to fifty nuns, and a crisis response team has been dispatched to guide them to safety.
According to the climate monitoring organization of the European Union, Copernicus, Greece is one of several European countries that are now facing an extremely high danger of wildfires.
In the meantime, the weather service Météo-France reported that the nation of France saw its warmest day ever on the Monday after the mid-August holiday.
The record is for Monday's daily average temperature of 26.63 degrees Celsius, which was measured in 30 meteorological stations around France. Temperatures on Monday reached a high of 42.4 degrees Celsius in the Drôme region of south-eastern France, but the record is for that day's overall average temperature across France.
Because of the unusually high temperatures in Switzerland, the "zero-degree isotherm," which is the height at which the temperature drops below the freezing point, has been pushed to a new record altitude. According to MeteoSwiss, the new limit of 5,298 meters (17,381 feet) has been established.
According to the Swiss met office, the point is gradually climbing higher, mostly due to the fact that global warming is being caused by humans.
According to what it states, the rate of increase in the height of the zero-degree isotherm has been speeding up since the 1970s, particularly in the spring and summer.
Comments
Post a Comment