A firefighting plane has crashed in southern Greece as authorities battled fires across the country amid a return of heat wave temperatures.
The crash occurred on the island of Evia, and was aired in a state television broadcast that showed the low-flying aircraft disappearing into a canyon before a fireball was seen moments later.
“We are at war -– completely focused on the fires,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said during a debate in parliament. “Over the coming days and weeks, we must remain on constant alert.” “We saw flames coming over the hills. Our hotel had capacity for 1,200 , but there was just one coach waiting,” he said. “We all just took our cases and started walking. It was about 3 kilometers before we got out from underneath the ash cloud.”
Near the seaside resort of Lindos, AP reporters saw hotel employees and guests, joined by local residents and firefighters, use fire extinguishers, towels and buckets of pool water to put out a small brush fire that broke out in the area. In Greece, an average of 50 new wildfires have broken out daily for the past 12 days, according to government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis. On Sunday, 64 new blazes were recorded.
A wind-fed brush fire burned near Palermo in Sicily, as well as several other blazes on the Mediterranean island, including near the seaside tourist resort of Cefalu. There were also wildfires in Calabria, including in the rugged Aspromonte mountains.
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