POBNEWS24, Dhaka, Aug 18, 2022 : At least 26 people have been killed and as many as 12 injured in a forest fire in northern Algeria.
The country’s interior minister, Kamel Beldaoud, said 24 people died in El Tarf and a mother and daughter in Setif, on the Tunisian border.
Firefighters with the help of helicopters were still trying to control several fires on Wednesday evening.
About 350 residents from various provinces have been evacuated, the report said.
The government’s civil protection agency said El Tarf was the worst-hit area. There was fire in 16 places.
The northern part of Algeria, a large country in North Africa, is affected by wildfires every year. 90 people are believed to have died in the fires last year as well. Apart from this, more than one lakh hectares of forest land was burnt.
In August last year, Interior Minister Kamel Beldaoud termed the fire incident in the Kabyle region as deliberate arson. He claimed that only a ‘criminal hand’ could explain the occurrence of around 50 simultaneous fires in different areas.
Several countries in the Mediterranean region have been affected by wildfires this summer. France, Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy in Europe have been particularly affected
Source: BBC.
