Catastrophic wildfires kill scores across the Mediterranean

More than 40 people - most of them in Alergia - have been killed as devastating fires destroy homes, businesses and trigger mass evacuations.

Violent wildfires, fuelled by climate change, have killed scores of people across the Mediterranean.

Deaths have been reported in Greece, where a plane dropping water on the blaze crashed, killing both pilots.

Yet, the heaviest death toll so far is in Algeria where there have been 34 victims, including 10 soldiers surrounded by flames during an evacuation in the coastal province of Bejaia, east of Algiers.

Two people died in southern Italy on Tuesday.

Scorching temperatures have blasted several across the Med for days now, creating tinder box conditions.

Extreme weather events such as these are linked to human-induced climate change. Scientists warn they will only grow more frequent, severe and longer unless people and governments drastically reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Algeria

In Algeria, firefighters continued to tackle 11 fires ravaging the northeast, after managing to put out around 80% of the deadly blazes that killed at least 34 people over three days.

Local media images show fields and bushes on fire, charred cars and shops reduced to ashes.

In Toudja, in the northeast, the fire was almost entirely stopped, despite a few persistent outbreaks. Sixteen people died here.

Fire-fighting planes dropped water for two days on this wooded area, located on the shores of the Mediterranean.

Fires have also raged in neighbouring Tunisia, where 300 people had to be evacuated from the coastal village of Melloula.

Greece

Greece has been particularly hard hit, with authorities evacuating more than 20,000 people in recent days from homes and resorts in the south of the holiday island of Rhodes.

Two Greek airforce pilots - aged 27 and 34 - died when their water-dropping plane, crashed on the island of Evia, east of Athens. The charred body of a man was found here on Tuesday.

Savage forest fires have ravaged the country for ten days, with hundreds of firefighters and at least four planes fighting the flames on Evia.

On Tuesday, temperatures were pushed back into the 40s, whipped up by strong winds.

With apocalyptic images of decimated forests continuing to shock Greece, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis warned fighting the fires would remain "difficult".

In reference to the dead pilots, he said: “They offered their lives to save lives.”

“They proved how hazardous their daily missions in extinguishing fires are ... In their memory, we continue the war against the destructive forces of nature.”

Successive evacuations of locals and holidaymakers have been ordered on Corfu, Evia and Rhodes.

Italy

While storms batter the north, parts of southern Italy are going up in flames.

Firefighters on Tuesday battled wildfires in Sicily, one of which got so close to Palermo airport that it shut down for several hours on Tuesday morning.

The tarmac melted and authorities urged people not to come to the airport for “security reasons.”

At least 1,500 people have so far been evacuated from the Palermo area. The national fire brigade, Vigili del Fuoco (VdF), said the situation was “critical” in five areas around the city, where several houses had been affected by the fires.

Sicily's civil protection agency reported temperatures of up to 47.6 degrees Celsius in Catania on Monday.

The bodies of two septuagenarians were found charred in a house engulfed in flames and an 88-year-old woman died near Palermo, media reported on Tuesday evening.

The president of the Sicilian region, Renato Schifani, has indicated that he wants to ask the government, which meets on Wednesday in the council of ministers, to declare a state of emergency on the Mediterranean island.

In Italy's northern Lombardy region, a powerful storm accompanied by heavy hail caused flooding and power outages and was blamed for the death of a 16-year-old girl at a scouts' camp.

France

Firefighters fought in the night from Tuesday to Wednesday against a virulent fire fanned by gusts of wind threatening three villages in Haute-Corse, a French department located on the island of Corsica (south).

The fires were close to three villages, Corbara, Pigna and Santa-Reparata-Di-Balagna and more particularly to two hamlets with "many sensitive points, dwellings, religious points", according to the firefighters.

Some 130 hectares of vegetation have been ravaged by the flames according to a latest assessment.

Croatia

In Croatia, flames came within 12 km of the medieval town of Dubrovnik late on Tuesday.

Turkey

In Turkey, authorities evacuated a dozen homes and a hospital as a precaution on Tuesday.

Wildfires are raging through a rugged forest area near the Mediterranean resort of Kemer, in Antalya province.

Another wildfire in the western province of Manisa, was brought under control a day after it burnt at least 14 homes.

source: euronews