Plane fighting forest fires in Greece crashes with two on board

RHODES, Greece, July 25 (Reuters) – A plane fighting wildfires in Greece crashed on Tuesday and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis warned of difficult days ahead with fires that will destroy homes and force the evacuation of thousands of tourists from the island of Rhodes.

State broadcaster ERT showed footage of the plane dropping water on a fire and then crashing into a hillside and bursting into flames.

The Greek air force said two aviators were on board the Canadair CL-215 amphibious plane when it crashed over the island of Evia, east of Athens.

Two helicopters went to the scene to carry out a search and rescue operation, the air force said. He did not give details about the fate of the airmen.

Hundreds of firefighters, aided by forces from Turkey and Slovakia, have been battling the flames that have raged on the island of Rhodes since Wednesday and erupted in hot and windy conditions. More emergency flights were to bring the tourists home.

Mitsotakis said Tuesday that the next few days would be difficult and that conditions could improve after Thursday.

“All of us are standing guard,” he said. “Given what the entire planet is facing, especially the Mediterranean, which is a climate change hotspot, there is no magical defense mechanism, if there was, we would have implemented it.”

A evaluation by scientists published on Tuesday said human-induced climate change has played an “absolutely overwhelming” role in the waves of extreme heat that have ravaged North America, southern Europe and China this month.

In Greece, a Rhodes prosecutor has launched an investigation into the causes of the fires and authorities’ preparedness and response, state broadcaster ERT said. He said that about 10% of the island’s land area had burned.

“A TEST WITHOUT PRECEDENTS”

Lefteris Laoudikos, whose family owns a small hotel in the seaside town of Kiotari, one of the epicenters of the fire over the weekend, said her 200 guests, mainly from Germany, Britain and Poland, were evacuated in rental cars.

He said his father, cousin and two other people were trying to put out the flames using a nearby water tank.

“On Saturday when I saw wind and that there were no planes, I told everyone ‘today we are going to burn’,” he said.

“My father saved the hotel. I called him and he didn’t want to leave. He told me ‘if I go there will be no hotel'”.

John Hatzis, owner of three unaffected hotels in northern Rhodes, said the island needed to welcome tourists.

“After the superhuman efforts to contain the fire, we need superhuman efforts to restart tourism now,” he said.

Rhodes, one of Greece’s largest islands, is among its top summer destinations, attracting around 1.5 million foreign tourists in the summer months.

Some 20,000 people had to leave their homes and hotels in Rhodes over the weekend as the inferno spread, hitting coastal resorts in the southeast of the verdant island, burning land, killing animals and damaging buildings.

After a fire in the coastal town of Mati, east of Athens, in 2018 killed 104 people, Greece has taken a more proactive approach towards evacuations. But critics say it hasn’t improved its ability to put out fires that are common in the summer, though more intense in this year’s heat wave.

The mayor of Rhodes said on Facebook that the island was facing an unprecedented test.

There were also fires on the island of Corfu.

Greece has seen very high temperatures in recent weeks and they are expected to rise until Wednesday to exceed 44 degrees Celsius (111.2 Fahrenheit) in some areas.

More than 2,000 tourists had returned home by plane on Monday and tour operators canceled upcoming trips. TUI (TUI1n.DE) canceled flights to Rhodes until Friday. He said he had 39,000 customers in Rhodes as of Sunday night.

Tourism accounts for 18% of Greece’s economic output and one in five jobs. On Rhodes and many other Greek islands, the dependence on tourism is even greater.

Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou, Renee Maltezou, Karolina Tagaris, and Alkis Konstantinidis; Written by Philip Blenkinsop; Edited by Janet Lawrence and Emma Rumney

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