Two people have died this afternoon when the plane with which they were trying to fight a fire crashed on the island of Euboea, east of Athens (Greece), as reported by the Greek Ministry of Defense.
The vehicle, manned by two people, was in an operation to extinguish a fire in the Platanistos area. After throwing water on the flames, the plane crashed into a hillside and exploded.
The accident occurred while hundreds of firefighters and at least four planes were fighting the flames on this island near Athens and Greece, which has suffered scorching temperatures for ten days.
Two helicopters have traveled to the scene of the accident with the aim of searching and rescuing the airmen, but their status is still unknown. The Euboea fire comes at the same time that hundreds of firefighters, aided by reinforcements from Turkey and Slovakia, are fighting the flames that have ravaged the island of Rhodes since Wednesday, where more than 30,000 people have already been evacuated.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has warned of difficult days ahead, with flames destroying homes and forcing the evacuation of thousands of tourists from the island of Rhodes. Mitsotakis has also stated that conditions could improve from Thursday.
“We are all on guard,” he said. “Given what the entire planet is facing, especially the Mediterranean, which is a hot spot for climate change, there is no magical defense mechanism, if there was, we would have already set it in motion.”
A Rhodes island prosecutor has opened an investigation into the causes of the fires and the authorities’ preparation and response, state broadcaster ERT reported. 10% of the island’s surface has burned.
Rhodes, one of Greece’s largest islands, is one of its main summer destinations, attracting around 1.5 million foreign tourists in the summer months. Some of them have been evacuated through emergency flights to their locations of origin.
According to a scientific assessment published Tuesday, human-induced climate change has played an “absolutely overwhelming” role in the extreme heat waves that have hit North America, southern Europe and China this month.
After a fire in the coastal town of Mati, east of Athens, killed 104 people in 2018, Greece has taken a more proactive approach towards evacuations. But critics say it hasn’t improved its ability to put out the fires that are common in summer, even though they’re getting more intense during this year’s heat wave.
