In Greece, huge forest and bush fires have been raging in different places in the country for days. Because strong winds have picked up in many places, rescue workers are having great difficulty in bringing the fire fronts under control.
Therefore, Greece is now once again receiving help from other European countries. More help is on the way to fight the fires, writes EU Commissioner Janez Lenarcic, the EU Commissioner responsible for crisis management, on the online platform X, which was formerly known as Twitter. There are firefighting planes, helicopters and firefighters on the way.
The help comes from Germany, Croatia, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Cyprus and Romania. It is carried out under the European Union’s civil protection mechanism, which the government in Athens had already requested and received for other major fires this year.
Because of the fire, patients at the Alexandroupoli hospital had to be accommodated on a ship.
(Photo: Vasilis Ververidis/Motionteam/Imago)
The port city of Alexandroupolis in particular is affected by the fires. There, the fire, which has been burning for the fourth straight day, has reached settlements near the city. Not only firefighters but also residents are involved in the extinguishing work, as state television showed.
The city’s university hospital had to be evacuated during the night – 175 people, including children and infants, were accommodated on a ferry or transferred to hospitals in other cities, as reported by Skai.
Large, uncontrolled fires also continue to rage in the Dadia National Park in the north-east of the country. According to media reports, a migrant died there from smoke poisoning. Migrants who entered Greece illegally from Turkey via the border river Evros are always hiding in the forest of Dadia.