Athens/Rome Jul 28 (BLAZETRENDS).- Firefighters have managed to contain the forest fires in central Greece and on the islands of Rhodes, Corfu and Euboea, which since last week have devastated tens of thousands of hectares of forest.
However, in Italy, several fires continue to be active in the south, with special virulence in the Apulia region, where tourists from a hotel and bathers from Ugento and Sardinia had to be evacuated this Thursday.
For the first time after ten days of fighting the flames, the situation in Rhodes, in the eastern Aegean Sea, is under control thanks to the efforts of some 300 firefighters and thousands of volunteers who put out small pockets of fire.
This great fire has already burned more than 16,000 hectares of forest and forced the evacuation of some 19,000 people last weekend, including 7,000 tourists. In addition, the fire burned dozens of homes and an as yet unquantified number of animals.
Also contained are the fires on the islands of Corfu, in the northeast of the country, and on the island of Euboea, northeast of Athens.
Likewise, the fire that broke out on Wednesday in the city of Volos, in Central Greece, and reached an ammunition depot, forcing the eviction of thousands of people, has also been controlled.
According to the Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection, Vasilis Kikilias, from last day 17 until yesterday Thursday, a total of 594 fires were declared in Greece and five people lost their lives because of the fires.
Fires are still active in southern Italy, but the situation is improving
In Italy the most serious situation is now registered in the Apulia region.
Firefighters have managed to control a large fire that affected the coast of this region throughout the night and although no injuries have been reported, the damage in the area is extensive.
The flames forced the evacuation of the Rottacapozza hotel, in the province of Lecce. The people who were on the beach also had to be evacuated, because the fire that spread behind them in the pine forest.
As reported by Civil Protection, since Sunday, 3,232 interventions have been carried out between Apulia, Sicily, Calabria and Sardinia, by the 9,846 firefighters who have taken turns in rescue operations in the 4 regions and only in Sicily have they taken carried out 1,414 interventions for forest fires, the highest number among the southern regions.
The Italian island, which has begun to assess the damage after the terrible fires these days, has declared a state of crisis and regional emergency and has also asked the national government to recognize the state of emergency due to the exceptional heat wave.
According to a first estimate, there are hundreds of buildings, infrastructures and general service systems destroyed or damaged by the fires, which have devastated more than a hundred municipalities and have caused damage worth more than 60 million euros and which must be add the more than 200 million losses in the agriculture sector.