Years of neoliberal reforms, corruption and degradation of firefighting equipment and institutions means we now have to endure multiple wildfires every fucking day. It's disgusting what's happening. And you can't blame it on the weather. "But, but, it was really hot, it reached 46 degrees a few days ago" oh yeah? It reached 48C about 40 years ago, and it goes above 40C almost every year in August, It's not a fucking excuse. "But but the wind" there was no fucking wind. Literally nothing. Yesterday it was 2 on the Beaufort scale, idk how much it is today but I'm looking outside and the branches are still. The media is constantly coming up with new dumbass excuses for the failures of the government. Greece doesn't have vast forests where it's very hard to spot a fire if it starts. There's no excuse why this should be happening.
It's absolutely horrible in Athens right now, there's a massive cloud of smoke which has covered everything, and houses are burning right outside the city. Also Euboea has a bunch of fires too, as do some other smaller islands. I don't know why but Euboea burns to the ground like 3 times every fucking year recently, we desperately need guillotines for everyone responsible.
Do you guys have cooling centers for old people to go to with air conditioning?
Hmm I really don't think so but we don't usually have very big problems with heat despite the temperatures being pretty high every year in July andAugust (peak is frequently at 40C or above, it peaked at 48C in 1977 which is the highest temperature ever recorded in Europe). I think the last time there were lots of victims was summer of 1987 when about 1300 people died due to an extreme heat wave that lasted more than a week, but back then almost no one had AC. Perhaps people are more prepared due to this being common, perhaps it is partly because of the climate not being very humid typically.
Like, we've only had AC for about 5 years but we managed, fans are pretty effective too.