A water bomber plane with “at least two people on board” crashed on Tuesday while fighting a Forest fire in the south of the Greek island of Euboeaas confirmed Yannis Artopiosspokesman for the fire service.
“A Greek Canadair plane with at least two people on board went down near Platanisto [un pueblo de Eubea]”the spokesperson said. Greece has been facing multiple fires and high temperatures for more than ten days.
The device, which intervened with at least three other planes and a hundred firefighters in a fire declared on that island, near Athens, crashed into a ravinethe authorities indicated.
A plane crashed in Greece while fighting forest fires
The accident occurred on the heights of karystoswhere a fire broke out last Sunday.
The two pilots belonged to the Greek air force, according to the Ministry of Defence, quoted by the public chain ERT. The same channel broadcast a video of the plane at the time of the incident, disappearing behind the flames and a thick black smoke.
Extreme heat wave in Greece
The areas of the tourist islands of Rhodes, Corfu and Euboeanear Athens, record maximum temperatures close to 44 degrees.
In Rhodes, where an operation was carried out over the weekend unprecedented evacuation of some 30,000 tourists and residentsmore than 266 firefighters are still trying to contain the fire for the eighth consecutive day.
“What is happening is tragic. The town has been ordered to evacuate, but it cannot be abandoned. We are fighting to protect our place,” he said. Vassilis Kalabodakispresident of the commune of Vati, in the southeast of Rhodes, flown over by Canadair planes.
The fires, fanned by strong winds, also affect Algeria, another country on the Mediterranean perimeter particularly exposed to global warming and where 34 people have already died.
Source: Ambito
