Hundreds evacuated by sea from Greek island as forest fires intensify in Athens

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A number of suburbs were evacuated as fires burned around the main highway linking Athens with northern Greece and hundreds of firefighters with water-spraying planes tried to prevent the flames from reaching the nearby town of Marathon.

Temperatures were over 40 degrees Celsius (107 Fahrenheit) all week and it was not expected to cool off on Friday with strong winds expected to spread the flames further.

Health officials said at least nine people have so far been hospitalized with varying degrees of injuries, including two volunteer firefighters who were treated for burns in intensive care units in Athens.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Thursday that Greece needs to step up its preparedness for extreme weather caused by climate change, while neighboring Turkey has also been battling massive wildfires for more than a week.

Turkish authorities have been accused of failing to prepare for the threat after official data showed that they had spent only a fraction of the modest funds allocated in the budget to prevent wildfires this year.

Eight people have died in fires that engulfed Turkey’s southwestern coastal regions, forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands of people, including tourists, and briefly threatening to swallow up a power plant.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has faced criticism that its response has been slow and inadequate – with opponents focusing on a shortage of firefighting aircraft, forcing Ankara to scramble to buy them from abroad.

In the past two weeks, fires in Turkey have burned more than three times the affected area on average per year, a European fire agency said. Neighboring countries also responded to the fires that were fanned by heat waves and strong winds.

Turkey’s state forest agency said it spent in the first half less than 2 percent of the 200 million lira (£17 million) it had set aside this year for construction, projects and equipment used to fight bushfires.

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