Ten soldiers among dozens killed by wildfires in Algeria

Fires raging through forests, mountain villages and towns in northern Algeria have left at least 34 people dead.

Among those killed were 10 soldiers encircled by flames during an evacuation, the Defence Ministry said.

Bejaia, part of the Berber-speaking Kabyle region east of Algiers, was the hardest-hit area, with 23 deaths since Sunday, the local Soummam Radio reported on Tuesday. Another 197 people were injured.

The official APS news agency reported on Monday night that 34 people had died across several regions, or “wilayas”. Some 8,000 firefighters and 530 trucks, backed by military firefighting aircraft, fought the blazes in scorching heat, according to the latest update.

The Algerian Defence Ministry said on Monday night that 10 soldiers died in the hardest-hit region of Bejaia. It added that 25 people were injured and taken to hospitals.

Summer wildfires in this North African nation have taken heavy tolls in recent years.

At least 37 people were killed last August after wildfires blazed near Algeria’s northern border with Tunisia.

A year earlier, at least 42 people were killed in blazes — including 25 soldiers called in to help fight the fires in the mountainous Kabyle region that is dotted with villages.

Strong winds and successive heatwaves have fuelled vicious fires in Greece and elsewhere around the Mediterranean this summer.

The Algerian online news site TSA quoted the National Meteorological Office as saying that temperatures that soared to around 50C in some of the fire-hit regions were expected to drop from Tuesday.