Greece: Blaze triggers massive explosions at air force ammunition depot – live

A wildfire has triggered a series of massive explosions at an air force ammunition depot in central Greece.

The depot was evacuated before the explosions, which shattered windows in the surrounding area.

No injuries were reported, although continued blasts prevented firefighting teams from approaching the site.

Greek state broadcaster ERT said the facility is in the coastal town of Nea Aghialos near the Volos area.

The fire reached the ammunition storage facility about four miles north of the major military air base in Nea Anchialos. Local media reported that bombs and ammunition for Greek F-16 fighters were stored at the site

The fighter jets are reportedly being moved from the air base.

Fire Service spokesman Ioannis Artopios said 12 villages were ordered to be evacuated in the Volos-Nea Anchialos area.

“Despite their superhuman efforts, our forces were unable to stop the blaze,” he said.

He said the blaze was the most dangerous of the 124 wildfires the fire service had to deal with on Thursday.

The wildfire burned on three fronts and forced a section of Greece’s busiest highway to close for several hours while national rail services passing through the area were delayed.

State ERT television showed residents and visitors in the coastal village of Anchialos, close to the blast site, being evacuated by sea while others were leaving in cars and buses.

The mayor of the city of Volos, Achilleas Beos, appealed to all remaining village residents to obey the evacuation order, saying some 80% had left. The coastguard said dozens of residents were taken in small private boats to the city of Volos.

The Nea Anchialos air base is 12 miles from the city, where the blasts were heard loudly. The air force said that while the facility was not immediately threatened, some of the F-16 fighters based there were taking off for other air bases as a precaution.

The warning lights have been on for weeks but now it is official: July 2023 is set to be the hottest month on record – and possibly in 120,000 years.

The new global mean temperature – the overall reading if you could stick a thermometer at every location on Earth – was confirmed by scientists at the European Copernicus Climate Change Service and World Meteorological Organisation.

Copernicus discovered that up to 23 July, Earth’s temperature averaged 16.95C, giving scientists enough data to declare a record before the month ends.

“Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning,” UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said on the findings.

“The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.”

Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said the country needed to take more steps to combat the effects of the climate crisis as wildfires in the central part of the country flared up, forcing more evacuations.

The blazes across the country, which have been stoked by strong winds and temperatures exceeding 40C, killed two more people in central Greece on Wednesday, taking the death toll to five.

“The climate crisis may be a reality, but it cannot be an excuse,” the prime minister said yesterday.

He added: “Our country ought to take more steps … to be ready to mitigate, as much as possible, the effects of a reality that we are already starting to feel, and that could have dramatic effects on many different aspects of our economic and social life.”

As wildfires rage across Sicily and Greece, Portugal is the latest Mediterranean country to be hit.

A fire broke out on 26 July near the popular coastal holiday spot of Cascais, just 30km west of capital city Lisbon.

The blaze started at 5pm in part of the Sintra-Cascais natural park, with strong winds fanning the flames and quickening the spread.

Local residents chipped in to help the hundreds of Portuguese firefighters sent to tackle the fires, with some attempting to protect their homes and villages with buckets of water and hosepipes.

“The fear now is that it will get to the houses,” local resident Ines Figueiredo told Reuters.

The sweltering 40C summer in Britain last year “will be considered cool” by the turn of the century, as extreme weather events become more frequent, the Met Office has warned.

In its annual State of the UK Climate report, the Met Office analysed 2022’s weather and warned temperatures higher than 40C, summer droughts, grassfires and downpours will increase in both frequency and severity.

A severe heatwave gripped the country last summer, as a new temperature record was set (40.3C) and numerous wildfires were reported across Britain.

Extreme heat and billowing winds have created the “perfect storm” for fires to rip through swathes of land in Greece, France, Portugal, Spain, Gran Canaria, Italy, Croatia, Turkey, Algeria and Tunisia.

In Rhodes, one of the worst affected Greek islands, more than 20,000 tourists and locals fled from the blaze in “the biggest evacuation” in Greece’s history.

Maryam Zakir-Hussain reports:

Paul Charles, CEO of travel PR firm PC Agency said: “Sadly we’re going to have to get used to more incidents like this – wildfires in the southern Mediterranean are going to become more common, so the travel industry needs to rework its plans for how to deal with this sort of thing.

“Consumers will want more reassurance in the future about the hotspot areas that will mean airlines and travel operators will need to have better plans in place for dealing with these sort of crisis and that might mean more flexible refund policies, it might mean putting more resources on the ground in a destination over the summer period so that they’re prepared.

“I do think the Foreign Office now needs to conduct a complete overhaul of its travel advice system.

“It failed the industry this week because the advice didn’t change and also consumers were caught between a rock and a hard place as they knew they would lose their money if they didn’t carry on with their booking and fly into the zones affected.

“There needs to be a complete overhaul of the Foreign Office travel advice system – what it’s for, how it changes and it needs to be in consultation with the industry.

“Either they create a whole new system or the Foreign Office doesn’t do travel advice and creates a new code of conduct for airlines and travel operators to follow.

“It’s left consumers confused and worried about losing their money.

“The travel advice from the Foreign Office is not fit for purpose for climate change.”

The Foreign Office has not advised Britons to avoid non-essential travel to the entire island, while some travel companies are continuing to fly holidaymakers to Rhodes as they claim the blazes are not affecting the whole island.