Fire in a grain field

Dead and injured in forest fires in Turkey

At least eleven people have died in forest fires in south-eastern Turkey.(Bild: AP/Sercan Ozkurnazli)

At least eleven people have died in a bush fire in south-eastern Turkey. Dozens more were injured, as Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced on Friday. According to the government, the fire broke out in a grain field late on Thursday evening.

It quickly spread to five villages due to strong winds. The fire was extinguished by Friday morning and the cause is still being investigated. At least eleven people died in the disaster in the south-east of the country. Numerous others were injured near the cities of Diyarbakir and Mardin. Residents said that hundreds of goats and sheep had also died in the flames. The charred carcasses lay in the fields on Friday.

The fire was extinguished on Friday.(Bild: AP/Sercan Ozkurnazli)

A burnt field in Turkey(Bild: AFP/APA/DHA )

Firefighting aircraft in Greece(Bild: AP/Petros Giannakouris)

Firefighter(Bild: AFP/Sotiris Dimitropoulos)

45 fires in Greece
Fires were also reported from neighboring Greece on Friday - the fire department registered 45. "In places, the gusts reached 95 kilometers per hour," said a spokesman. The Peloponnese peninsula, the island of Kefalonia and several regions of central Greece were affected. One death was reported in the evening. A 55-year-old man collapsed during fire-fighting work and was taken to hospital unconscious. Some villages in the south of the country were evacuated as a precaution.

Tourist facilities were not affected. The fire risk will remain very high at the weekend - after several weeks and temperatures of around 40 degrees (see video above). The country was already struggling with high temperatures and numerous forest fires last summer.

Huge areas destroyed
According to data from the European forest fire information service Effis, Turkey has already recorded more than 70 forest and bush fires this year. The worst forest fires in the country's history in 2021 killed nine people and destroyed huge areas on the Mediterranean and Aegean coasts.