A massive wall of flames raced through forests toward a port city in north-eastern Greece overnight, prompting authorities to evacuate another eight villages and a city hospital as firefighters battled dozens more wildfires across the country on Tuesday.
Gale-force winds and high summer temperatures have hampered the efforts of hundreds of firefighters backed by dozens of water-dropping aircraft as they tackle wildfires breaking out across Greece.
The fire risk level for several regions, including the wider Athens area, was listed as “extreme” for a second day on Tuesday.
On Monday, the blazes left two people dead and two firefighters injured in northern and central Greece.
About 65 of the more than 100 patients in the Alexandroupolis hospital in north-eastern Greece were transported to a ferry docked in the city’s port as the country’s largest wildfire currently burning out of control entered its fourth day. Others were taken to other hospitals in northern Greece.
The flames turned the sky over the city and across the region red, hiding the sun as choking smoke and swirling flecks of ash filled the air.
Dozens more houses were damaged by another wildfire in the Kavala region, local authorities said, while a separate fire in the Evros border region was burning through forest in a protected national park.
The coast guard evacuated 14 people by sea overnight from a nearby coastal area to the port of Alexandroupolis.
A new fire broke out in the Aspropyrgos area on the western fringes of the Greek capital on Tuesday morning, prompting authorities to issue evacuation orders for two villages in the area.
Greece suffers destructive wildfires every summer.
Its deadliest wildfire killed 104 people in 2018, at a seaside resort near Athens that residents had not been warned to evacuate.
Authorities have since erred on the side of caution, issuing swift mass evacuation orders whenever inhabited areas are under threat.
Last month, a wildfire on the resort island of Rhodes forced the evacuation of some 20,000 tourists.
Days later, two air force pilots were killed when their water-dropping plane crashed while diving low to tackle a blaze on Evia.
Another three wildfire-related deaths have been recorded this summer.
