OPEN LETTER/ Come to the dialogue and listen to me speak, otherwise I will cut off your scholarships, you will rot in prison. Please!

 Kliko këtu për të tjera
Voxpress:

From the Iberian Peninsula to the Balkans, all of Europe is on fire

2025-08-12 09:02:10Aktualitet SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX

From the Iberian Peninsula to the Balkans, all of Europe is on fire

The Iberian Peninsula and Balkan countries are battling multiple wildfires amid a heatwave that have already destroyed part of the Spanish tourist area of Las Medulas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The heat wave sweeping across Europe has caused meteorological institutes in France, Italy and even Albania to issue heat wave alerts.

In France, the city of Bordeaux broke the heat record today with 41.6°C.

"These high temperatures, which are starting to reach the UK, are surprisingly strong compared to historical records. However, more widespread, longer and more frequent heatwaves are a predictable consequence of increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, largely due to our use of fossil fuels," explains Richard Allan, a professor at the University of Reading in the UK.

"The intensity of summer heat waves, as well as extreme weather conditions, whether dry or wet, will continue to progressively worsen until we control greenhouse gas emissions and stabilize global warming," he added, stressing the need to "prepare for a more dangerous world."

The Italian Health Ministry issued a red alert on Monday for seven major cities, including Bologna and Florence, as temperatures are expected to rise further in the coming days. Eleven cities are on red alert for Tuesday and 16 for Wednesday.

About 190 firefighters and the army continue to fight a fire that has raged since Saturday in the park surrounding Mount Vesuvius, which is closed to tourists.

A four-year-old Romanian boy died of heatstroke, days after being found unconscious in his family's car in Sardinia.

In Spain, a week-long heatwave, with temperatures approaching 40°C, is expected to continue until Sunday, according to the local meteorological agency, and is causing numerous fires.

"The region of Castile and Leon, where Las Medulas, a former Roman gold mine listed by UNESCO in 1997, is located, has recorded 13 fires in just three days," Juan Carlos Suarez-Quinones, environmental advisor for this northwestern region, told the press, stressing that many of them are deliberate.

Legacy

The winds are making it "very difficult" to extinguish the fire, which is turning the centuries-old trees that cover the Las Medulas site into ash, and which has caused four minor injuries, according to the same source.

"It will take years for the landscape to recover," lamented Alfonso Fernandez, mayor of Carucedo, a nearby town, in an interview with Cadena Ser radio.

Another fire near the tourist town of Tarifa in southern Spain, which was under control on Friday, has flared up again, forcing the evacuation of 2,000 people, some from hotels or beaches.

Neighboring Portugal is battling three major fires on Monday. The most worrying one is in Trancoso, in the center, and is still mobilizing more than 650 firefighters.

"This caused six minor injuries, including three firefighters," according to a Civil Protection report cited by the Lusa news agency, which however notes that the situation is improving.

In France, 20 departments, mainly in the west and south, were classified as at high risk of fires by Meteo-France on Monday, a day after a massive fire that engulfed 16,000 hectares in the Aude department was brought under control.

In Turkey, more than 2,000 people were forced to evacuate on Monday in the northwestern province of Canakkale, where a violent fire destroyed homes and intoxicated dozens of residents.

The Balkans are overheating.

A red heatwave alert is also in effect in several regions of the Western Balkans, with temperatures reaching 41°C in some places, in southern Bosnia, Montenegro and Albania.

"In Albania, approximately 800 soldiers were deployed to assist firefighters, while 14 fires were still burning on Monday," the Ministry of Defense announced.

"They are being assisted by seven helicopters and water bombers from the UAE, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia and Greece," he said.

"In this country, nearly 34,000 hectares have burned since July in almost daily fires," according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).

Police evacuated tourists on Monday—500 according to local media—from the "Blue Eye" protected natural area, a popular tourist water source about 20 kilometers near Saranda, a coastal resort in the south of the country.

In neighboring Montenegro, the army also intervened to support firefighters in a large fire fueled by strong winds that broke out on Monday north of Podgorica, the capital, forcing several families to flee their homes, national broadcaster RTCG reported.

In Croatia, a forest fire destroyed approximately 300 hectares in the Jesenica region, near the port of Split, in the south./ ATA


Në përputhje me standarded JTI

Video

SHIKO KANALIN NE YOUTUBE
×