The climatic situation in Greece continues to be very worrying. This Sunday afternoon, a water bomber plane crashed during an operation on the Ionian island of Zante. However, its pilot is safe and sound, AFP learned from Greek firefighters.
The Petzetel-type plane was carrying out an operation to extinguish a small fire on the island located to the west of the Greek mainland, when it crashed for an undetermined reason, according to the same source.
Further east, on the burning island of Euboea, thousands of desperate residents watched as the “walking dead” on Sunday the blaze that consumed their villages and lands, on the twelfth day of a wave of forest fires in Greece and Turkey. “The battle continues,” declared Greek Deputy Minister of Civil Protection Nikos Hardalias, announcing “another difficult night” for the Greeks and firefighters.
While most of the fires were under control in Turkey, the Euboea island disaster, Greece’s second largest, remained the country’s most worrisome. “We have experienced fires, but this situation is unheard of,” laments Nikos Papaioannou, a resident of Gouvès, before his flaming village is evacuated.
Under the grip of fires for six days, this spit of land wedged between Attica and the Aegean Sea offered an apocalyptic panorama. Along the roads, residents doused their land with water as flames engulfed dense wooded areas.
Greece and Turkey have been experiencing an exceptional heat wave for almost two weeks. Fires fueled by scorching temperatures have killed eight people in Turkey, two in Greece, as well as dozens of hospital patients.