Officials say the charred bodies were found in the Dadia forest in Evros, north-eastern Greece. A hospital in the port of Alexandroupolis was also evacuated on Monday night while firefighters continued to battle the flames on the island of Evia
The remains of eighteen people believed to be migrants, were found in a forested area of northern Greece on Tuesday.
Wildfires have raged for four straight days across the region and had already claimed the life of an undocumented migrant in the Dadia national park on Monday.
An elderly shepherd had also been found dead in the Boeotia region earlier Monday.
Dadia is one of the most important protected areas in Europe, offering an ideal habitat for rare birds and also home to the only breeding population of black vultures in the western Balkans.
It comes as patients at Alexandroupolis General Hospital were evacuated late on Monday night due to a large fire approaching the northeastern Greek city.
Preparations for a possible evacuation had been announced earlier by the Fire Brigade.
Patients were transferred via ambulances provided by the Health ministry onto a ferry docked at Alexandroupolis port with the help of police.
Two separate alert text messages were issued for residents, alerting them to heavy smoke and ordering them to stay indoors, shutting all doors and windows.
214 firefighters and 50 fire trucks were dispatched to man the flames.
Infernos continue to spiral out of control on the islands of Evia, Kythnos and the region of Boeotia north of Athens, amid a dangerous mix of gale-force winds and temperatures of up to 41 degrees Celsius.
“There are nine active fronts… it’s a similar situation to July,” a fire department spokeswoman said.
The European Union announced it was deploying two Cyprus-based firefighting aircraft and a Romanian firefighting team via the bloc’s civil protection mechanism.
ADVERTISEMENTThe very hot and dry conditions that increase the fire risk will persist until Friday, according to meteorologists.
Amid a heatwave, a fire that started on July 18 and was fanned by strong winds ravaged almost 17,770 hectares in 10 days in the south of Rhodes, a popular tourist island in the southeastern Aegean Sea.
Around 20,000 people, mostly tourists, had to be evacuated.
Source: Euro News
