Two Greek pilots have died after their water-bombing plane crashed into a hillside while attempting to fight the wildfires ravaging the country.
The water bomber, a Canadair CL-215, hit a hillside in Evia in the battle to extinguish flames near a village outside Karystos. Greece’s air force, which owns the plane, later announced that both pilots had died in the crash.
Aviation experts said the aircraft had been flying low to target the conflagration when its right wing clipped a tree and it began spinning out of control. The armed forces immediately announced three days of mourning in honour of the two men.
A third man was found dead on Tuesday, and a “DNA test will be needed to confirm if this is a shepherd that was missing since Sunday”, according to Konstantina Dimoglidou, Greek police spokeswoman.
The news came as the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, said the Mediterranean was a “hotspot for climate change” as more tourists boarded repatriation flights home.
After a dip on Monday, temperatures were expected to reach 46C in some areas on Tuesday and weather models suggest the heatwave will be the longest on record in Greece.
“We have a difficult summer ahead of us,” Mitsotakis said as his cabinet assembled on Tuesday to discuss the wildfires ravaging the country. “I will say what is evident: that in front of what the whole planet is facing, especially the Mediterranean, which is a hotspot for climate change, there is no magic defence. If there were, we would obviously have enforced it.”
For eight days, fires fuelled by the heat and fanned by high winds have raged across Greece, tearing through virgin forests on islands including Rhodes, Evia and Corfu, decimating land in the Peloponnese and triggering mass evacuations by officials desperate to get people out of harm’s way.
In the south of Rhodes, where blazes resurged on Tuesday, almost 20,000 people, primarily holidaymakers, had to flee hotels over the weekend in the biggest operation of its kind ever in Greece.
Mitsotakis said “things will become worse”, citing the higher temperatures, dryness and strong winds that have been hallmarks of the heatwave. Wednesday and Thursday would be particularly difficult, he said.
“Perhaps now we have more means, more human resources, are better prepared, but we know this battle will always be difficult as we are already experiencing the effects of the climate crisis,” he said. “The next few days … will be especially difficult and that’s why we should all obviously remain on absolute alert.”
In Rhodes, 266 firefighters backed by 55 fire brigade vehicles, two water-bomber planes and two helicopters were trying to contain blazes on Tuesday.
Fires had rekindled on Corfu and evacuation orders were being sent to at least two villages after civil protection authorities said the conflagration was burning out of control.
In Evia, scene of some of the worst infernos in living memory in 2021, at least seven villages have been evacuated, and firefighters rushed to douse flames that had encroached on communities in the hills above the coastal town of Karystos.
Temperatures are expected to drop from Thursday, possibly by as much as 8C.
As many as 10,000 Britons are said to be stuck in Rhodes, where most tourists have been housed in makeshift evacuation centres since being moved from fire-hit areas. On Monday, airlines began operating repatriation flights to take people home.
Mitsotakis insisted this week that Rhodes would remain “the flagship of tourism” in Greece, where the industry accounts for roughly 25% of GDP. He said Greeks who had seen their lives upended and their properties and businesses destroyed would be compensated.
