Greek health and fire authorities on Friday braced for a three-day heatwave expected to set in over the weekend, with temperatures scheduled to hit 42 degrees Celsius over parts of mainland Greece.
In Athens, municipal and prefectural officers warned residents to avoid unnecessary travel during daylight hours and prepared air-conditioned public offices for use by elderly and ailing persons.
The Greek meteorological service (EMY) said the heatwave will set in from the west and north of the country on Saturday and progressively move southwards, reaching 42 degrees Celsius in certain areas by Sunday.
As the forecast also includes strong winds, the Greek fire department has placed its forces on alert to deal with possible blaze outbreaks.
Scores of brush and forest fires have broken out in various parts of the country since the start of the summer, destroying hundreds of acres of forest and agricultural land, but causing no casualties.
On Friday, firefighters were battling a blaze in the southern prefecture of Messinia, in the Peloponnese, and had managed to place another seven fires under control in the prefectures of Argolida, Drama, Laconia, Ilia, Ioannina, and the Cycladic island of Andros.
The rising temperatures have also created concern about the capacity of the Athens electricity network to cope with the added demand, as air-conditioning units will be placed on overdrive over the next few days.
But the authorities insist that with most Greeks out of town on summer vacation, the grid is perfectly capable of managing the strain.
”We have taken all the necessary measures to avoid the possibility [of a blackout] over the next few days, when high temperatures are expected,” Development Minister Dimitris Sioufas, the competent government official for electricity production, told reporters. — AFP
