July 24 () –
The Prime Minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, assured this Monday that the country is “at war” against the fires, which have plagued the Mediterranean nation for a week and have caused thousands of evacuations.
“We are at war, focused exclusively on the front of the fire. We will rebuild what we lost, we will compensate those hit,” said the Greek head of government during a speech before Parliament in Athens.
According to Mitsotakis, Greece is immersed in “a battle against the climate crisis”, a phenomenon that has been elevated to the category of “the threat of our time” and that “tests the entire planet, especially the Mediterranean”.
“We experienced devastation in many areas and unfortunately most recently on Rhodes. The island was boiled. Fortunately, despite the unprecedented advance of the fire, no human lives have been lost,” he added.
The Greek prime minister has warned the population that the high temperatures are expected to continue in the next three days, although as of Wednesday it is estimated that there will be “a pause in the heat”, reports ‘Kathimerini’.
“The climate crisis is already here, it will manifest itself with increasing natural disasters and the government must not be satisfied with the progress we have made, but rather we must quickly adapt our plans to the new conditions,” he concluded.
Mitsotakis himself stressed on Sunday that around 30,000 people were evacuated from Rhodes due to the fires, mostly residents and tourists from twelve towns on the island, who have ended up being transferred to the north of Rhodes, in gyms, schools, on board ferries, and in private homes.
The high temperatures and the constant changes in the wind are making the work of the emergency teams that are fighting the flames difficult. The fire has forced the entire evacuation of twelve towns such as Lindos – where its historic Acropolis is located – Kalathos or Pefka. Other areas such as Kiotari or Gennari have also started this process in the last few hours.
