Two helicopters collided while fighting wildfires near Athens on Sunday, killing both crew members in one of the aircraft, Greece's fire service said.
A search and rescue operation for the two-person crews of the Bell-type aircraft, which had earlier taken off from a military airport at Elefsina in West Attica, found two crew members from one of the helicopters with minor injuries, the Hellenic Fire Service said. The other two were pulled unconscious from the wreckage of their helicopter and taken to hospital, it said.
The collision took place during a firefighting operation in the area of Psatha in the Attica region, west of Athens, it said.
Footage of the incident shows the two helicopters closing to cross paths at low altitude. The lower helicopter crashed in flames after its main rotor struck the underside of the one flying above it. The second helicopter then dumped its load of water and flew away.
Europe has been ravaged by wildfires this summer after record-breaking heatwaves and little rain – conditions that scientists say have been exacerbated by climate change. Destructive blazes in France and Spain showed signs of easing over the weekend, but several wildfires have broken out in Greece after a period of relative calm there.
Gale-force winds that had fuelled a fire around Porto Germeno on the Gulf of Corinth, 60km north-west of Athens, subsided, but flames crossed a mountain to the south and reached the settlement of Veniza and a military firing range, igniting unexploded ordnance. Firefighters focused their efforts on preventing fire from advancing towards the coastal town of Megara, which has a population of about 30,000.
“There are moments when the force of nature and the intensity of weather conditions exceed all human planning and every operational capability,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in his weekly Sunday message.
Greek authorities issued evacuation alerts for several areas in western Attica, including an industrial estate near Megara. In the village of Agios Konstantinos, residents were doing their best to halt the spread of the blaze.
“The fire has been burning since last night; it is certain that they cannot have forces everywhere. We as residents are doing everything we can,” said Tasos Tzempelikos, 61, who was pouring water on the fire along with his son.
The Greek daily Protothema reported that a major effort was under way to prevent the fire from Veniza from reaching the nearby coastal town of Megara. It said it was likely that more than 10,000 hectares of land had been destroyed by the fire so far.
Overnight, several settlements on the Ionian island of Kefalonia were evacuated after a fire broke out in the Pastra area in the south.
In France, wildfires in the Gironde and Var departments showed signs of easing. Authorities reported only minor flare-ups in the south-western Gironde area and said the blaze in the south-eastern Var department had not spread overnight.
In Monfort-Sur-Argents, in the region of Var, Georges Blanc, who fled from the fire, returned home and was busy putting out hot embers to prevent a flare-up, while firefighters watered the wider area.
“With the combined efforts of the two Canadairs [firefighting planes] and the firefighters, I think you could say all the houses were saved ... And now, well, I'm coming back to check, because since I saw the flames, I thought the houses wouldn't have survived,” he said.
In central Spain, wildfires that ripped through tens of thousands of hectares over the past week were mostly under control, though firefighters were dealing with reignitions in some areas.
In the western province of Caceres, a forest blaze erupted on Saturday, prompting the evacuation of around 800 people. Those residents were allowed to return on Sunday but remained confined to their homes as the fire was still active.
Other European countries are struggling with drought and receding water levels in major rivers, including the Rhine and the Danube, which recorded its lowest water levels on record in Hungary, Serbia and Romania.
Hungary faces a critical five days, Prime Minister Peter Magyar said on Sunday, as the drying out of the Danube forced the country's sole nuclear power plant to shut for the first time in more than four decades, with a new heatwave looming.
Falls in water levels amid a lack of rain have also disrupted shipping and tourism in Hungary, and triggered water-use restrictions in more than 100 cities and villages.
Danube levels in Serbia fell to their lowest since 1985, cutting the daily output of the country's biggest hydropower plant to only 20 per cent, the country's Energy Minister said on Sunday.
