A search-and-rescue operation for four pilots is underway in Greece after a mid-air collision between two firefighting helicopters.
Television video showed one of the helicopters explode and plunge to the ground in flames after an apparent rotor collision. They were in the Psatha area near Athens battling wildfires that have destroyed more than a hundred homes and forced evacuations across Greece. AlJazeera reported.
Firefighters were battling to contain a separate blaze around Porto Germeno on the Gulf of Corinth, where flames crossed a mountain and reached a military firing range, activating unexploded ammunition.
Nearly 500 firefighters have been deployed with reinforcements also arriving from France and Romania.
Europe has been ravaged by wildfires this summer following little rain – conditions scientists say have been exacerbated by climate change. Several new blazes have broken out in Greece after a period of relative calm there.
Gale-force winds that fuelled the Porto Germeno fire have subsided, but flames reached the settlement of Veniza and a major effort was underway to prevent the fire from reaching the nearby coastal town of Megara, the Greek daily Protothema reported.
More than 10,000 hectares (24,200 acres) of land had likely been destroyed so far, it said.
