Two people have died in a car in a wildfire which has torn through southern Cyprus amid soaring temperatures which are expected to climb to 44C on Thursday.
Cypriot police said two charred bodies were found in a burnt out vehicle after the blaze started in the village of Malia in the Limassol district on Wednesday afternoon.
The bodies are yet to be formally identified, but local media reports say the car belonged to a 77-year-old woman who had been reported missing. The pair are understood to be an elderly couple from the area.
More than a dozen other people have been treated for injuries related to the fire, which has already destroyed homes and ravaged 100 sq km (40 sq m) of land.
More than 250 firefighters were deployed to battle the fire, which has been fanned by strong winds on soaring temperatures.
The country’s Department of Meteorology has issued an extreme maximum temperature alert for Thursday, with a high of 44C expected in inland areas.
Cyprus Fire Service spokesperson Andreas Kettis said there were “no active fronts” in the fire, but “flare-ups” continued in the area.
Several communities have been left without electricity or air conditioning as a result of the blaze, which tore through properties.
“When I entered my house, I saw the mountain and the valley full of flames,” Antonis Christou, who lives in Kandou, one of the villages affected by the fire, told the AFP agency.
“I cried, really I cried, because people got burnt”.
Neighbouring countries have been asked to support the firefighting effort by the Cypriot government.
Cyprus has requested support for its firefighting effort through the European Union’s civil protection mechanism.
Spain is expected to send two aircraft on Thursday, government spokesperson Konstantinos Letymbiotis said.
Two firefighting aircraft are on standby in Jordan, while two more are expected from Spain, Justice Minister Marios Hartsiotis told public broadcaster CyBC.
Witness testimony which suggests the fire was started deliberately has been passed onto police by the fire service.
Europe has faced searing temperatures this summer during heatwaves, with wildfires also taking hold in the Greek island of Crete, Turkey and Spain.
Cyprus, which is facing a drought, is routinely hit by wildfires during the summer months.
In 2021, four Egyptian farm workers died in a wildfire which burned an area of around 55 sq km (21 sq m) in the Limassol district.