MADRID —
Spain’s government said Monday it would classify regions struck by big
wildfires this year as disaster zones, a move that will trigger emergency
subsidies and other financial support measures.
اضافة اعلان
So far Spain has suffered nearly 400 wildfires,
following punishing heat waves and long dry spells, which have devastated more
than 287,000 hectares of land, according to the European Forest Fire
Information Sys-tem (EFFIS).
That is more than three times the total area
destroyed in 2021, according to the EFFIS database.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said his cabinet would
on Tuesday ap-prove classifying as a disaster zone “all territories that have
been devas-tated by the great fires that we have endured throughout this year”.
He was speaking during a visit to Bejis in the
eastern Valencia region, where a wind-fanned blaze ravaged vast swathes of land
over the past week, with around 2,200 people evacuated.
Firefighters managed to stabilize the blaze on
Sunday, allowing local of-ficials to lift all remaining evacuation orders.
Standing in front of charred trees, Sanchez said he
regretted the “psy-chological blow” suffered by those who had lost their
belongings to the flames, as well as the environmental damage.
Parts of Spain are the driest they have been in a
thousand years due to an atmospheric high-pressure system driven by climate
change, according to a study published last month in the journal, Nature
Geoscience.
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