2023-07-22 20:39:40
It is unclear how many people were specifically affected by the evacuations. There is no official information yet. Different numbers circulated in the Greek media. The public broadcaster reported in a special that evening that 8,000 people had left the south of the island, which is popular with tourists, by land. The number might be even higher, it said. The newspaper “To Vima” even spoke of 30,000 people.
Some of those affected were taken to safety in buses, some in boats: the Greek coast guard said, for example, that people had been picked up by ships and boats from the beaches of Kiotari and Lardos on the east side of the Mediterranean island. They were taken to another safe beach. According to the information, more than 30 private ships were involved in the evacuation operation. The convoy of ships was led by three Coast Guard ships.
Regional governor George Hadjimarkos told TV channel Skai that evacuations were complicated by road links being cut off by the blaze. “The goal is to protect human life,” he said. In some cases, holidaymakers had to walk to safety because of the roads blocked by the fire. Two villages were reportedly evacuated. The authorities also called for people to leave the villages of Pefki, Lindos and Kalathos. In Kiotari, three hotels were damaged by the fire.
AP/Eurokinissi/Argyris Mantikos The evacuation operation reportedly involved over 30 private vessels
Hundreds of residents offered help
Hundreds of Rhodes residents volunteered to help the travelers, Greek television also reported. A Greek Navy ship was on its way to the disaster area to help with the rescue operations, the coast guard also said. Since the evacuation alarm had been issued in the morning, tourists had been walking to the beaches.
Video footage shows some walking with young children under the scorching sun. According to media reports, some of the holidaymakers who have now been evacuated had missed their flights from the island because the flames had cut off normal transport connections.
Extremwetter
Although individual extreme events cannot be directly traced back to a specific cause, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change it is clear that extreme weather events such as floods, storms and heat are becoming more frequent and more intense as a result of the climate crisis. This means: Precipitation and storms are getting heavier, heat waves are getting hotter and droughts are getting drier.
Heavy smoke formation
“It is the most difficult fire we have to deal with,” said a spokesman for the Greek fire brigade on Saturday. The flames got out of control in the followingnoon. Force six winds blow in the region. “The smoke is so heavy it’s hard to breathe. People will be taken to the small town of Gennadi, from where they will be accommodated in other hotels,” Konstantinos Traraslias, deputy mayor of Rhodes, told Athens news channel Skai.
As the government in Athens announced in the evening, eight people with respiratory problems were taken to the hospital. The fire, which has been raging on the mountains of Rhodes for four days, turned towards the coast due to the change in wind direction and surprised the fire brigade, a spokesman said.
APA/AFP/Eurokinissi/Eurokinissi The fires have been raging for several days
No end to the heat wave in sight
In Greece there is no end in sight to the heat wave. As the Meteorological Office announced on Saturday, values of up to 45 degrees Celsius are expected in the south of the country on Sunday. In the central Greek city of Larisa, the thermometer showed 44 degrees early Saturday followingnoon.
In northern Greece, too, there were values around 40 degrees in many places on Saturday. Even most of the Aegean islands have temperatures above 38 degrees. One of Greece’s leading meteorologists, Konstantinos Lagouvardos, estimated that “if things continue like this”, this heatwave might become the longest on record in Greece. In July 1987, a similar heat wave in Greece killed an estimated 1,300 people.
Forest fire on Rhodes
Thousands of people have reportedly been brought to safety because of a major fire on the Greek holiday island of Rhodes.
Warning of “harder times”
The fire brigade once more warned of the great danger of forest fires. “We have even more difficult times ahead of us,” said a spokesman on Saturday. The fires in the Athens area and on the Peloponnese peninsula have been brought under control. But they flared up once more and once more because everything had dried up, they said.
Meanwhile, hundreds of firefighters from Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Slovakia and Malta have arrived in Greece to reinforce the fire brigade and are battling the flames. France, Italy, Turkey, Cyprus, Israel and Jordan are taking part in the extinguishing work with firefighting planes and helicopters, the Greek civil defense announced.
Archyde.com/Hazz Slovak Fire And Rescue Services No breather for fire departments
According to the meteorologists, the heat wave will continue with small fluctuations in the coming week. A new high is expected on Wednesday with temperatures around 46 degrees in southern Greece.
Heatwave in Italy
The Italian meteorologists are also expecting a new heat wave at the beginning of next week. Then peak temperatures of 47 to 48 degrees are possible between Sardinia and Sicily, the weather service Ilmeteo.it wrote on Saturday. The weather service of the Italian Air Force registered 40 degrees from Palermo, the capital of Sicily, early Saturday followingnoon. In Rome it was 37 degrees. 41.8 degrees had already been measured there last Tuesday.
Northern and central Italy were hit by severe storms on Saturday, including the area around Bologna and the Adriatic coast. The weather service for the Emilia-Romagna region, whose capital is Bologna, also reported severe thunderstorms from the provinces of Reggio Emilia, Ferrara and Ravenna. Photos showed broken power poles, collapsed houses, scattered roof tiles and crashed cars. One video showed bathers fleeing the beach en masse in Lido di Classe near Ravenna. The exact extent of the damage was not yet clear.
Report: Several injured in Ferrara province
According to a report in the newspaper “La Repubblica”, three people were injured in the province of Ferrara. Heavy hailstorms were reported from the city of Bologna. The authorities there warned once morest the use of underpasses and the danger of falling trees and street signs. Various railway lines in the region were also interrupted. There have been reports of hailstones the size of tennis balls in some places. According to the weather service, wind gusts with speeds of up to 129 km/h were registered.
There were also severe storms in the Marche Adriatic region, which borders to the south of Emilia-Romagna. According to “La Repubblica”, a stretch of beach north of Ancona was surprised by a sudden and violent storm surge. While the beaches were still full of bathers, the sky darkened within minutes and strong gusts of wind ripped away dozens of parasols. The waves had penetrated to the sixth row of beaches, and loungers were floating in the water.
Severe storms hit northern Italy on Friday. Among other things, a video made a splash in which masses of water and ice rushed through the streets of the small town of Seregno in Lombardy.
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