8 Aug

Wildfires rage near Athens, forcing evacuations in southern Greece

Wildfires rekindled outside Athens and forced more evacuations around southern Greece on Thursday as weather conditions worsened and firefighters in a round-the-clock battle stopped the flames just outside the birthplace of the ancient Olympics.

As additional support arrived from Greece’s military and European Union countries, water-dropping planes and helicopters swooped over blazes near the capital, on the island of Evia and near Ancient Olympia to the south.

“The country is facing an unprecedented environmental crisis, with multiple large fires,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said after visiting the site where the Olympics were held in antiquity every four years from 776 B.C. for more than a millennium. More than a dozen villages were evacuated in the area.

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