Authorities warned risks from the fire remained high (File)
Athens:
A wildfire that burned for 11 days in northeastern Greece has devastated an area larger than New York City, the European Union-backed Copernicus Climate Change Service said Tuesday.
Fueled by gale-force winds and warm weather, the blaze that started near the town of Alexandroupolis quickly spread across the Evros region, killing at least 20 people last week in Europe’s deadliest blaze this summer. It turned swathes of lush greenery into scorched earth, destroying homes and livelihoods.
In a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, the Copernicus Emergency Management Service said the fire had destroyed at least 808.7 square kilometers (312.2 square miles). New York City covers 778.2 square miles (300.5 square miles).
Copernicus said last week that the fire was the largest on European soil in years.
All but one of the dead are believed to be irregular migrants who crossed the border from Turkey and evaded police in the forest. Authorities fear more bodies will be found once the flames are extinguished, as Evros is a popular crossing point into the EU for thousands of migrants and refugees each year.
Aircraft and hundreds of firefighters on the ground, including from Serbia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Albania, battled the flames, the fire service said.
Authorities warned on Tuesday that risks from the fire remained high.
Summer wildfires are common in Greece, but the government says extreme weather events, which scientists have linked to climate change, have made them worse this year. Greece’s deadliest fire on record killed 104 people outside Athens in 2018.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
