Spanish
Geneva.- The heat wave that is hitting Europe, accompanied by fires in countries like Greece and Turkey, is "only the beginning" of a summer in which it is expected that this type of phenomenon will last until September, warned the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC).
Faced with this, "it is urgent to change a reactive policy to a preventive one, in which governments and communities take action to save lives," the federation highlighted in a statement. IFRC recalled that the fires in the Turkish region of Izmir, on the country's western coast, have already caused at least two deaths and have forced the evacuation of 50,000 people, while on the Greek island of Crete, some 5,000 local residents and tourists have had to abandon their locations, also due to the fire.You may be interested in: Extreme heat and possible storms will mark the weather of this July 4th in Madrid
Fires and smaller-scale evacuations are also occurring in other countries such as eastern Germany or North Macedonia, indicated the Red Cross, whose volunteers are cooperating in the extinction and assistance efforts for those evacuated from different countries. "Heat waves and fires - increasingly frequent and lethal - are no longer isolated events, but are becoming the new reality for millions of people," warned the regional director of IFRC in Europe, Birgitte Bischoff.
