The fires that ravaged wooded and urban areas in northeastern Algeria on Wednesday and Thursday, killing at least 38 people, have all been brought under control, a protection official told AFP on Friday. civil.
“All the fires are completely under control,” said the colonel of the fire brigade, Farouk Achour, deputy director of information and statistics at Civil Protection.
The provisional official toll is 37 dead – including 30 victims, including 11 children and six women in El Tarf near the border with Tunisia. Five other deaths were recorded in Souk Ahras (east) and two in Sétif (east). But several media have reported a 38th victim, a 72-year-old man who died in Guelma (east).
For 48 hours, more than 1,700 firefighters fought to put out more than 20 forest fires which also left around 200 injured, some of them seriously burned.
The Department of Justice has opened an investigation to determine if some of the fires were of arson.
The prosecution of Souk Ahras, where an entire family perished in the flames, announced the arrest of an arsonist in a forest near this city of 500,000 inhabitants. More than 350 families fled their homes and a hospital near a wooded area had to be evacuated.
Since the beginning of August, there have been nearly 150 fires in Algeria which have destroyed hundreds of hectares of forests and copses.
(AFP)
