30,000 people have been sheltered for the night until Sunday on the Greek island of Rhodes where firefighters have been fighting a forest fire for five days.
More than 20 boats took part on Saturday in an evacuation operation of more than 1,500 people. According to local authorities, some 30,000 people were able to leave the threatened areas by any means. There are tourists there but also residents who have taken refuge in gymnasiums, schools and hotel conference centers on the island to spend the night there.
The fire remains out of control in the Laermon and Lardos area. On the surface of the sea, the mercury was 2 to 3°C above normal, the meteorological services announced on Saturday. Temperatures expected throughout the weekend are expected to exceed 44°C in Greece, not the only one hit by the record heat which is also hitting the southern United States.
“We are likely to experience a 16-17 day heat wave, which has never happened before in our country,” Kostas Lagouvardos, the research director at the Institute for Environmental Research and Sustainable Development of the National Observatory in Athens, told ERT television.