Greece gets EU help to battle deadly wildfires
ATHENS: Greece on Sunday was battling wildfires that have ravaged homes and sparked evacuations, with Czech firefighters and Italian aircraft being deployed to help. Firefighters were working on five fire fronts late Sunday in the Peloponnese area west of Athens, as well as on the islands of Evia, Kythera and Crete.
'Today is expected to be a difficult day with a very high risk of fire, almost throughout the territory,' fire brigade spokesman Vassilis Vathrakogiannis said, though he added that the situation was improving. Forecasters predicted that strong winds that have been fanning the flames would die down on Sunday in most areas.
But they warned that Kythera, a popular tourist island with 3,600 inhabitants, continued to face 'worrying' conditions. Evacuation messages were on Sunday sent to people on the island, which lies off the south-eastern tip of the Peloponnese. Giorgos Komninos, deputy mayor of Kythera, told the state-run ERT News channel that half of Kythera had been charred.
'Houses, beehives, olive trees have been burnt,' he said. ERT reported that a broad fire was still burning on the island late Sunday, but in smaller fronts and the situation was improving.
Dozens of firefighters supported by three helicopters and two aircraft were battling the Kythera blaze, which erupted Saturday and forced the evacuation of people stranded on a popular tourist beach. Local authorities have requested a state of emergency so that stepped-up assistance can be provided for the island, which was previously stricken by a major fire in 2017.
Eleven regions of Greece still face a very high fire risk, according to officials. Greece requested EU help on Saturday and two Italian aircraft were expected to arrive on Sunday, the fire brigade said. Units from the Czech Republic were already at work. Numerous flare-ups were reported overnight on the island of Evia, near Athens, where flames laid waste to swathes of forest and killed thousands of farm animals. Workers have toiled throughout the day to repair serious damage to Evia's electricity network and some villages were facing water supply disruptions. — AFP
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Kuwait Times
2 days ago
- Kuwait Times
Russia volcano erupts for first time in 450 years
A towering plume of ash spewing from Russia's Krasheninnikov volcano, which has erupted for the first time in 450 years. -- AFP MOSCOW: A volcano erupted for the first time in 450 years in Russia's eastern Kamchatka region, the nation's emergency authority said Sunday, days after one of the strongest earthquakes on record hit the region. Pictures released by Russian state media show a towering plume of ash spewing from the Krasheninnikov volcano, which last erupted in 1550, according to the Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program. The plume is estimated to have reached an altitude of 6,000 meters (19,700 feet), Kamchatka's Ministry of Emergency Situations said in a post on Telegram. 'The plume is spreading eastward from the volcano toward the Pacific Ocean. There are no populated areas along its path, and no ashfall has been recorded in inhabited localities,' the ministry said. The volcano has been assigned an 'orange' aviation hazard code, the ministry added, meaning flights in the area may be disrupted. It came after Klyuchevskoy, another volcano in the region—the highest active in Europe and Asia—erupted on Wednesday. Eruptions of Klyuchevskoy are quite common, with at least 18 occurring since 2000, according to the Global Volcanism Program. Both recent eruptions followed one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded, which struck on Wednesday, sparking tsunami warnings and evacuations of millions of people from coastal areas from Japan to Hawaii to Ecuador. The worst damage was seen in Russia, where a tsunami crashed through the port of Severo-Kurilsk and submerged a fishing plant, officials said. The magnitude 8.8 quake struck off Petropavlovsk on Russia's Kamchatka peninsula and was the strongest since 2011 when a magnitude 9.1 quake off Japan caused a tsunami that killed more than 15,000 people. - AFP
Kuwait Times
6 days ago
- Kuwait Times
Shanghai evacuates 283,000 people as typhoon hits
SHANGHAI: Shanghai has evacuated almost 283,000 people from vulnerable coastal and low-lying areas as Typhoon Co-May made landfall in the Chinese financial hub on Wednesday evening, bringing lashing rains and winds. Almost a third of flights from Shanghai's two international airports have been cancelled, the city's news service said, totaling around 640. The Shanghai Central Meteorological Observatory upgraded an earlier yellow rainstorm alert to orange on Wednesday afternoon, the second-highest warning level. Typhoon Co-May first made landfall in eastern Zhejiang province around 4:30 am Wednesday (2030 GMT Tuesday), with winds near its center of 83 kilometers (52 miles) per hour. 'From last night to 10:00 am today, 282,800 people have been evacuated and relocated, basically achieving the goal of evacuating all those who needed to be evacuated,' state broadcaster CCTV reported. More than 1,900 temporary shelters have been set up across the city, authorities said. In a village on the outskirts of Shanghai on Wednesday evening, one such shelter—a large hall filled with dozens of iron beds—was mostly occupied by elderly people, AFP reporters saw. Around 20 people sat on beds or gathered around tables to eat dinner, along with local community staff. Sheets of rain inundated the city without pause on Wednesday, with pedestrians bracing their umbrellas against gusts and delivery drivers splashing through huge puddles as they made their way through sodden streets. Ferry services have been cancelled, additional speed limits are in place on highways, and there has been some disruption to metro and train services. However, Shanghai's Legoland and Disneyland remained open on Wednesday morning. As the typhoon tracked northwest after making landfall in the morning, live shots from China's eastern coast showed waves overrunning seaside walkways, while broadcasts from the city of Ningbo showed residents wading through ankle-deep water. Separately, China issued a tsunami warning for parts of the eastern seaboard after a magnitude-8.8 earthquake struck off Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula. However, the warning was later lifted, according to CCTV. Co-May was downgraded to a tropical storm before leaving the Philippines, and then strengthened again over the South China Sea. Its passage has had an indirect link to extreme weather in northern China, Chen Tao, chief forecaster at the National Meteorological Center, told the state-run China Daily. Heavy rain there has killed more than 30 people and forced authorities to evacuate tens of thousands, state media reported Tuesday. 'Typhoon activity can influence atmospheric circulation... thereby altering the northward transport of moisture,' Chen said. Natural disasters are common across China, particularly in the summer when some regions experience heavy rain while others bake in searing heat. China is the world's biggest emitter of the greenhouse gases that drive climate change and contribute to making extreme weather more frequent and intense. But it is also a global renewable energy powerhouse that aims to make its massive economy carbon-neutral by 2060. – AFP
Kuwait Times
7 days ago
- Kuwait Times
Heavy rain, landslides kill over 30 in China
MIYUN: Heavy rain killed more than 30 people and forced authorities to evacuate tens of thousands as swaths of northern China were lashed by torrential downpours that sparked landslides and flooding, state media said Tuesday. Weather authorities have issued their second-highest rainstorm warning for the capital Beijing, neighboring Hebei and Tianjin, as well as 10 other provinces, state news agency Xinhua said. The rains are expected to last into Wednesday. The heavy rainstorms had left 30 people dead in Beijing as of midnight Monday, Xinhua said, citing flood control authorities. More than 80,000 people have been evacuated in the capital alone, according to state-run Beijing Daily. The death toll was highest in Miyun, a northeastern suburb, it said. 'This time the rain was unusually heavy, it's not normally like this,' a Miyun resident surnamed Jiang told AFP as water streamed down the road outside her house. 'The road is full of water so people aren't going to work,' she said. In Xinanzhuang village, AFP journalists saw murky water had submerged homes, cars and a road. A local man in his sixties said he had never seen water levels so high. Nearby, torrents of water gushed from spillways in the Miyun Reservoir, which authorities said reached its highest levels since its construction in 1959. Beijing's northern Huairou district and southwestern Fangshan were also badly affected, state media said. Dozens of roads have been closed and over 130 villages have lost electricity, Beijing Daily said. 'Please pay attention to weather forecasts and warnings and do not go to risk areas unless necessary,' the outlet said. More than 10,000 people also evacuated their homes in the neighboring port city of Tianjin, which saw major flash floods, according to state-owned nationalist tabloid Global Times. And in Hebei province, which encircles Beijing, a landslide in a village killed eight people, with four still missing, state broadcaster CCTV said Tuesday. The army was mobilized to help disaster relief operations, the channel said. CCTV footage showed soldiers in orange life vests bringing supplies including bottled water, carrying people on stretchers, and clearing debris from roads. Social media users online shared anxious accounts of being unable to reach family members in Hebei's mountainous Xinglong county. Mudslides and floods forced more than 8,000 people to evacuate, while rescuers were still attempting to reach some villages that had 'lost contact', China National Radio said Tuesday. — AFP Local authorities have issued flash flood warnings through Tuesday evening, with the city of Chengde and surrounding areas under the highest alert, Hebei's radio and television station said. 'All-out efforts' Chinese President Xi Jinping has called on authorities to plan for worst-case scenarios and relocate residents of flood-threatened areas. The government and Communist Party have collectively allocated around 490 million yuan ($68 million) for disaster relief in nine regions hit by heavy rains, CCTV said. Another 200 million yuan will be allocated for the capital. In 2023, heavy rain killed more than 80 people across northern and northeastern China, including at least 29 people in Hebei where severe flooding destroyed homes and crops. Some reports had suggested the province shouldered the burden of a government decision to divert the deluge away from Beijing. Natural disasters are common across China, particularly in the summer when some regions experience heavy rain while others bake in searing heat. China is the world's biggest emitter of the greenhouse gases that drive climate change and contribute to making extreme weather more frequent and intense. But it is also a global renewable energy powerhouse that aims to make its massive economy carbon-neutral by 2060. - AFP
