Tag: Greece

British TV presenter Michael Mosley found dead on Greek island

ATHENS, June 9, 2024 (AFP) – British diet guru and TV personality Michael Mosley was found dead on Sunday on the Greek island of Symi where he went missing this week, police said. “People on a boat saw a body close to the rocky coast,” said Petros Vassilakis, police chief for the southern Aegean region. The lifeless body was spotted by a television crew from Greece’s ERT public channel out filming in the area where […]

Iran releases remaining Filipino crew members from seized tanker (St. Nikolas)

The Philippines said Wednesday that Iran has freed all 18 Filipino crew members of an oil tanker that was seized in the Gulf of Oman in January. Iran’s navy had boarded the Greek-owned St. Nikolas, which was carrying 19 crew, off the coast of Oman. The only Greek crew member was released the following week. Tehran began freeing the Filipino crew in batches at the end of January after a replacement crew was hired from […]

Lufthansa plane makes emergency landing in Greece after smoke in cabin

ATHENS, March 18, 2024 (AFP) – A Lufthansa flight with 190 passengers on board made an emergency landing Monday in Rhodes after reporting smoke in the cabin, according to the operator of Greek regional airports, Fraport. The pilot of the aircraft travelling from Frankfurt to Dubai requested permission to land on the southern Aegean island due to “the presence of smoke inside the plane”, said Fraport. The passengers were safely evacuated from the aircraft, which […]

Floods wiped out quarter of Greek farm produce: experts

ATHENS, Sept 15, 2023 (AFP) – A quarter of Greece’s annual agricultural production was wiped out in last week’s deadly flash floods triggered by Storm Daniel, which drenched the central region of Thessaly, according to experts. The floods, which killed 15 people, have also left thousands of people in temporary shelters in hotels, schools or with relatives while 30 villages were inaccessible amid the threat of waterborne diseases. Officials were trying to determine if a […]

Rescues underway in flood-hit Greek towns as toll rises to 11

PALAMAS KARDITSA, Greece, Sept 9, 2023 (AFP) – Firefighters backed by the army were rescuing hundreds of people Saturday in villages in central Greece blocked off by floods, as the toll rose to 11 dead. “More than 2,850 people have been rescued since the beginning of the bad weather,” fire department spokesman Yannis Artopios told broadcaster Mega on Saturday. “There are still many people in the villages around Karditsa, Palamas and toward Trikala. They are […]

Greece blaze is ‘largest wildfire ever recorded in EU’

BRUSSELS, Aug 29, 2023 (AFP) – A forest blaze in Greece is “the largest wildfire ever recorded in the EU” and the bloc is mobilising nearly half its firefighting air wing to tackle it, a European Commission spokesman said Tuesday. Eleven planes and one helicopter from the EU fleet have been sent to help Greece counter the fire north of the city of Alexandroupoli, along with 407 firefighters, spokesman Balazs Ujvari said. The EU’s civil […]

Greek firefighters battle major blazes on multiple fronts

ATHENS, Aug 23, 2023 (AFP) – Greek firefighters on Wednesday struggled to contain uncontrolled fires throughout the country for a fifth day, several of them bordering an acrid, smoke-filled Athens. In the last two days nineteen people believed to be migrants — including two children — have been killed in forest fires. A fire fanned by strong winds ripped through the foothills of Mount Parnitha, the largest forest adjoining the capital, burning near the outskirts […]

Athens district evacuated as Greek fire death toll hits 20

ALEXANDROUPOLI, Greece, Aug 22, 2023 (AFP) – Thousands of people in an outer district of Greece’s capital Athens were under evacuation orders Tuesday as firefighters battled a steadily growing wave of wildfires around the country that has left 20 dead. Civil protection ordered the evacuation of Ano Liosia in northwest Athens, a district of over 25,000 people while at the neighbouring community of Fyli an AFP journalist saw homes on fire. Over 60 fires had […]

URGENT ¥¥¥ 18 suspected migrants die in Greek forest fire: firefighters

ATHENS, Aug 22, 2023 (AFP) – Eighteen suspected migrants were found dead Tuesday in a forest fire raging in northeastern Greece, the fire department said. The bodies were found near the national park of Dadia, a region bordering Turkey that is a frequent entry point for migrants, fire department spokesman Yiannis Artopios said in a televised address. This is a developing story.

Two dead as Greece battles spreading wildfires

ALEXANDROUPOLI, Greece, Aug 22, 2023 (AFP) – Greece on Tuesday battled to contain wildfires around the country that have killed two people and forced widespread evacuations in the second deadly wave of blazes in a month. Flames spread unchecked in northeastern Greece as well as the islands of Evia and 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 (106 […]

Thousands of tourists flee wildfire on Greece’s Rhodes island

RHODES, Greece, July 24, 2023 (AFP) – Tens of thousands of people fled wildfires on the Greek island of Rhodes on Sunday as terrified tourists scrambled to get home. And there were reports of wildfires breaking out on Corfu, another popular Greek island, with land and sea evacuations underway late Sunday. On Rhodes, firefighters tackled blazes that erupted in peak tourism season, sparking the country’s largest-ever wildfire evacuation — and leaving flights and holidays cancelled. […]

In fire-hit Greece, Greens struggle to be heard

By John HADOULIS Agence France-Presse ATHENS, June 20, 2023 (AFP) — Wildfires, floods and climate change have failed to budge Greeks towards voting Green for over a decade, but a new coalition hopes to break through deep-rooted skepticism in Sunday’s national elections. While environmental parties surge elsewhere in Europe, Greeks “view the environment as a little bit of a luxury,” says Vasiliki Grammatikogianni, a co-chair of the Green and Purple alliance. A ‘Green wave’ that […]