- Europe Grapples With Sweltering Temperatures and Wildfires
- Greece Battling Wildfires Amid Tragic Discoveries
- Heatwave Alerts and Disruptions Across Multiple European Countries
More sweltering temperatures fueled wildfires and prompted health warnings throughout Europe on Wednesday, as a fire in Turkey forced the closure of the Dardanelles shipping channel and winds fanned the flames in Greece, where 20 people have already perished.
France, which expanded its heatwave red alert in the south of the country, announced that it would reduce production at a nuclear power facility due to a lack of cooling water due to high temperatures.
In Greece, firefighters fought a blaze near Athens for a second day, and authorities warned that heat and winds could fuel more wildfires, a day after 18 corpses, likely migrants, were discovered in a charred northern forest.
Tuesday’s outbreak of a wildfire north of Athens has engulfed the capital in smoke and ash, extending to the town of Menidi, where approximately 150 people were evacuated from three nursing homes. As a firefighting helicopter dropped buckets of water to extinguish the blaze, police issued an evacuation order.
“The fire was extinguished for a half hour… Reuters reported that the train had begun and halted due to heavy gusts, according to 60-year-old resident Dimitris Armenis.
Police retrieved big petrol canisters from an ash-covered monastery while a volunteer lifted a Virgin Mary icon.
A Migration Ministry spokesperson said 700 more refugees were transported from Amygdaleza, 25 km north of Athens.
Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection in Greece, Vassilis Kikilias, reported that 355 wildfires have broken out since Friday, including 209 in the last 48 hours.
During the fifth day of a fire near the northeastern Greek port city of Alexandroupolis, scores of hospital patients, some on stretchers and others with IV drips, were evacuated onto a ferry.
The authorities were attempting to identify the 18 bodies discovered on Tuesday in Dadia forest in the Evros region on Turkey’s frontier, along a common route for Middle Eastern and Asian migrants attempting to enter the European Union.
Transport disruption
On the Turkish side, authorities temporarily closed the Dardanelles Strait to shipping, creating a queue of about one hundred cargo ships, so that helicopters and aircraft could collect water to put out a forest fire that had been raging for two days.
The strait, which connects the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea, is a significant shipping route for oil and grains.
“Let it burn if you must,” a goat herder in Turkey’s northwestern Canakkale province instructed residents via mobile phone as a conflagration threatened a nearby village. Simply leave the village; do not remain there any longer.”
French meteorological service Meteo-France reported the greatest late summer average temperature since 1947 after August 15. Some regions of southern France would experience temperatures of 42 degrees Celsius, according to the forecast.
The authorities also issued a red heatwave alert for the entire southern region of the country, urging mountain climbers to delay their activities and grape growers to work in the early morning to avoid the extreme heat.
EDF issued a production alert for the Rhone nuclear power plant Saint Alban due to a cooling water shortage. Similar warnings have been issued for other flora this summer.
In Spain, which is experiencing its fourth heatwave of the summer, people who ordinarily receive food and other necessities from the non-governmental organization Fundacion Madrina received fans on Wednesday to help them cope with the heat.
Tenerife firefighters extinguished a forest fire, allowing 8,000 evacuees to return home.
Local farmers protested the use of scarce water resources to combat the fire, and police said they had detained an 80-year-old man for pelting a firefighting helicopter with stones, forcing it to make an emergency landing.
Italy issued heatwave red alerts for Wednesday and Thursday in 17 of its 27 major cities, including Rome, Milan, Florence, and Venice, citing “emergency conditions” that could imperil the healthy as well as the elderly, according to the health ministry. On Friday, the number was expected to rise to 19.
