Greece, Italy and Russia continue to battle wildfires that have been blazing for several days. The EU has sent help to help the situation in Greece, with member states sending nine planes, 1,000 firefighters and 200 vehicles to the area.
EU commissioner for crisis management, Janez Lenarcic, said: “We are mobilising one of Europe’s biggest ever common firefighting operations as multiple fires affect several countries simultaneously.”
In Greece, over 2,600 people have been evacuated from the country’s second biggest island Evia. The scale of the situation was laid bare by the Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis who said in a televised address on Monday that 586 fires had erupted over the past week in all areas of the country.
Southern Europe has been severely hit by wildfires across Greece, Turkey and Italy this summer as the region experiences its most extreme heatwave in three decades. Italy is bracing itself for further fires as temperatures in parts of the country reach 45C.
Meanwhile, large fires have been burning across Siberia in Russia for several weeks, with Nasa satellite images revealing that smoke from burning forests had travelled over 1,8500 miles to reach the north pole. Almost 3.4m hectares were burning in Yakutia, Russia’s coldest region.
Earlier this week, the UN revealed its latest research into the extent of climate change, warning that extreme weather events will continue to worsen without drastic measures to reverse the increase in global temperatures.
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