Greece on fire: the video of a dramatic evacuation as fire approaches Athens

The flames swept through a town near Athens overnight, as the fire burned in Greece for the fifth day in a row and leaves the Greek capital on alert, and hundreds of people were evacuated by ferry from the island of Evia, east of the capital, in a dramatic night rescue.

A volunteer firefighter was killed and at least 20 people were injured, while dozens of fires burn in different parts of the country, a situation that one official described as “Biblical catastrophe.”

Dozens of homes, businesses and farms were destroyed last week by fires that broke out during the longest and most intense heat wave in thirty years in the country, with temperatures of up to 45 degrees.

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The fire of the Mount Parnitha, a national park south of Athens comprising some of the last major forests near the Greek capital, has forced thousands of people to evacuate since Thursday night, and emergency crews face winds and high temperatures in their struggle to contain it.

Strong winds pushed the fire towards the city of Thrakomakedones during the night, where it burned houses and forced the evacuation of its residents.

“[Es] really bad, ”said Thanasis Kaloudis, a city resident. “All Greece has gone up in flames.”

By this situation, Clouds of suffocating smoke reached Athens, where authorities installed an emergency telephone line for people with breathing difficulties.

Dramatic evacuation

In other apocalyptic scenes – which went viral on social networks – during the night and until today, 1,153 people were evacuated by boats from a coastal town and beaches in Evia, an island of rugged, forested mountains facing the Aegean Sea that is popular with tourists, after the flames of the forest fire cut off all other means of escape.

People carried babies or carried older adults in chairs as they boarded small ferries to take them to safety.

Another strong fire was burning in the region of Hands, in southern Peloponnese, where Mani Oriental Deputy Mayor Eleni Drakoulakou told state broadcaster ERT that 70% of the area had been destroyed. “It is a biblical catastrophe. We are talking about three quarters of the municipality ”, he alerted, asking for more support from hydrant planes.

Greece’s firefighting forces have reached the limit. The government asked for help through the European Union’s emergency support system. Firefighters and planes have arrived from France, Ukraine, Cyprus, Croatia, Sweden and Israel, with more expected to arrive on Saturday from Romania and Switzerland.

Civil Protection Chief Nikos Hardalias said last night that firefighters faced “exceptionally dangerous and unprecedented conditions” while fighting 154 wildfires this week, with 64 still burning overnight.

“Nightmare summer”

The Prime Minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, After visiting the main fire control center in Athens, he considered that the country is going through a “Nightmare summer”, He added that the government’s priority “has been, above all, to protect human lives.”

Earlier this week, the European Union’s Copernicus Atmospheric Surveillance Service (CAMS) warned that the Mediterranean has become a focus of forest fires with a heat wave that produces a high risk of new accidents and smoke pollution throughout the region.

Turkey is fighting what, according to President Tayyip Erdogan, have been the worst forest fires in its history. Six fires were still burning in Turkey on Saturday and at least two towns in the southwestern Mugla province were evacuated.

Eight people have died in the fires that have ravaged Turkey’s Aegean and Mediterranean coastal regions for eleven days, burning tens of thousands of hectares and forcing thousands of residents and tourists from their homes and hotels.