Turkey evacuates panicked tourists by rescue boat as fires rage in Aegean resort of Bodrum
- The death toll from fires in Turkey’s Mediterranean towns rose to six on Saturday after two forest workers were killed, the health minister said
- President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that the Turkish government would cover the rents for people affected by the fire and rebuild their homes
Panicked tourists in Turkey hurried to the seashore to wait for rescue boats on Saturday after being told to evacuate some hotels in the Aegean Sea resort of Bodrum owing to the dangers posed by nearby wildfires, Turkish media reported.
Coastguard units led the operation and authorities asked private boats and yachts to assist in evacuation efforts from the sea as new fires erupted. A video showed plumes of smoke and fire enveloping a hill close to the seashore.
The death toll from wildfires raging in Turkey’s Mediterranean towns rose to six Saturday after two forest workers were killed, the country’s health minister said. Fires across Turkey since Wednesday have burned down forests and some settlements, encroaching on villages and tourist destinations and forcing people to evacuate.
The Russian news agency Sputnik said more than 100 Russian tourists had been evacuated from Bodrum and relocated to new hotels.
In one video of the Bodrum fire filmed from the sea, a man helping with the evacuations was stunned at the speed of the fire, saying “this is unbelievable, just unbelievable. How did this fire come (here) this fast in five minutes? ” He was not named in the video.