Two new major wildfires broke out on Saturday, one in the northern part of the Ionian Island of Corfu and the other in the low mountain ridge above the west Corinth Gulf coastal city of Egio (Aigio), while a massive and devastating continued to blaze in south central Rhodes, the popular holiday island in the southeast Aegean.
A fourth wildfire draining fire-fighting personnel and vehicles erupted in extreme southeast Evia Island, east of the harbor town of Karystos in a rugged and remote region.
An evacuation was ordered for four villages in northern Corfu and four sparsely populated settlements in southeast Evia.
Meanwhile on Rhodes, the foreign affairs ministry set up a help desk for foreign nationals at the island’s airport in order to facilitate and coordinate the departure of holiday-makers who are without travel documents. Many visitors left behind their belongings due to their rapid evacuation from several hotels in the fire-ravaged areas.
Telephone numbers for the help desk are (+30) 6985889650 (+30) 6983209611, as well as (+30) 6977960941 for special emergencies. The latter can be reached on Whatspp.
Along with a sizable contingent of local fire-fighters, vehicles and water-dropping aircraft, the days-long operation on Rhodes is also aided by 31 firefighters from Slovakia with four water tankers, two firefighting aircraft from France, another two from Turkey and one from Croatia.
The evacuation effort on Rhodes involved some 19,000 people, 3,000 of which were taken off beaches by boats, the large such operation in modern Greek history, according to law enforcement authorities.
In a related development, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday called Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to express her support for the country.
“I called Kyriakos Mitsotakis to express our full support for Greece, which is confronted with devastating forest fires and a heavy heat wave due to climate change,” von der Leyen said in a post on her Twitter account.
“Greece is handling this difficult situation with professionalism, putting emphasis on safely evacuating thousands of tourists, and can always count on European solidarity. EU firefighters are already on the ground,” she noted.
An extreme (category 5) risk for wildfires and high alert-on will be in effect on Monday in several southern Greek regions, namely, the greater Athens-Piraeus region (Attica prefecture), central Greece (particularly Viotia prefecture and the large island of Evia), the Peloponnese, especially Ilia prefecture, and Rhodes.
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