Two elderly people found burned to death in their home in Italy are among at least 40 people killed as wildfires rage across huge swaths of the Mediterranean.
Countries including Italy, Greece, and Algeria are deploying thousands of firefighters to battle devastating fires. These fires are fueled by scorching temperatures and strong winds. The highest death toll is in Algeria, where wildfires ripped through 11 provinces in the North African nation, killing at least 34 people, state broadcaster EPTV News reported Monday, citing the country’s interior ministry and local groups. Ten of the victims were soldiers, Reuters reported.
More than 8,000 firefighters have been deployed to control the blaze as residents living near forested areas were evacuated, according to EPTV. The situation now appears under control, according to Algeria’s Civil Protection Services. Algeria said it has contained all wildfires, in a statement on Wednesday.
Italy, one of the countries hardest hit by extreme heat in Europe, is battling 10 fires in the south of the country, including blazes in Sicily, Calabria, Abruzzo, and Puglia, where 2,000 people were evacuated from three hotels on Tuesday evening.
Fires claimed at least four lives on Tuesday, according to Italian news agency ANSA.
A 98-year-old man died as flames reached his home in the coastal city of Reggio Calabria in southern Italy, according to ANSA.
In Palermo in Sicily, two people in their 70s were found burned to death in their home near Palermo. An 88-year-old woman died when an ambulance called for her was blocked by the fire. In some parts of Sicily, temperatures reached 47.4 Celsius (117.3 Fahrenheit) on Monday, edging close to the European temperature record of 48.8 degrees Celsius, set in 2021.
Italy’s meteorological agency said temperatures would dip slightly over the coming days in the south before climbing again towards the weekend. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Wednesday that the fires and extreme weather disasters are putting the country “to the test.”
She came short of announcing a state of emergency in the country, as many regions demanded, tweeting that the government had “deployed all the means at its disposal.” Further west, in parts of Portugal and southern Spain, emergency teams struggled to contain wildfires on Wednesday as residents were evacuated from the affected regions.
Outside the Portuguese capital of Lisbon, on Wednesday morning, over 500 firefighters remained at the scene of a wildfire that broke out in the Cascais area. This is according to the Portuguese public broadcaster RTP. Firefighters remained at the scene after the fire was contained.
In the Spanish municipality of Tejeda on Gran Canaria, a forest fire broke out on Tuesday in an area where 200 hectares of land had already burned down. This is according to the Spanish public broadcaster, RTVE.
