Algerian firefighters on Thursday struggled to contain wildfires that have devastated much of the drought-stricken North African country and killed nearly 40 people, including 12 who died on a bus trapped by the flames.
Deadly wildfires have become an annual scourge in Algeria, where climate change turns large areas into a powder keg during the hot summer months.
Some residents have lost their homes to the blaze and authorities have been accused of being ill-prepared with few firefighting planes available despite record casualties in last year’s fires.
The Justice Department has launched an investigation after Home Secretary Kamel Beldjoud suggested some of the fires were intentionally set.
At least 38 people were killed, including more than 10 children, according to multiple sources, including local journalists and the fire service.
Most were in the El Tarf region near Algeria’s eastern border with Tunisia, an area hot at 48 degrees Celsius (118 Fahrenheit).
According to various Algerian media, at least 200 other people have suffered burns or respiratory problems.
Algerian television showed people fleeing burning houses, women carrying children in their arms.
A journalist in El Tarf described “scenes of devastation” on the road to El Kala, a northeastern port city.
“A fire tornado swept everything away in seconds,” he told AFP news agency by phone.
An AFP team in El Kala saw burned-out cars, exhausted people and charred trees amid the strong smell of smoke.
A witness, who asked not to be named, said 12 people were burned to death on their bus trying to flee as the fire swept through an animal park.
Takeddine, a worker at the park who declined to give his full name, said staff helped families with young children escape as the fire engulfed the park.
“No one came to our aid, neither the fire brigade nor anyone else,” he told the AFP news agency.
One of his colleagues died in the process, he added.
– Authorities criticized –
A paramedic in El Kala said 72 people were rushed to the city’s hospital, where nine died and another nine remained in intensive care.
Associations across Algeria called for monetary donations and medical supplies to help the victims.
The fire department said Thursday afternoon that 1,700 firefighters were deployed to battle the fires, 24 of which were still raging.
A journalist in the mountainous Souk Ahras region told AFP a huge fire in a nearby forest sparked panic in the town of half a million people, where nearly 100 women and 17 newborns had to be evacuated from a hospital.
The scenes were reminiscent of fires last year that killed at least 90 people and devastated 100,000 hectares of forest and farmland in the north of the country.
This disaster provoked criticism of the authorities for the lack of fire-fighting aircraft.
Algeria had agreed to buy seven such aircraft from Spanish company Plysa but canceled the contract after a diplomatic row over Western Sahara in late June, according to specialist website Mena Defense.
Authorities have leased a Russian Beriev Be 200 water bomber, but it broke down and is not expected to be operational again until Saturday, Interior Minister Kamel Beldjoud said.
Several fire-fighting helicopters are available to civil defense and the army.
– ‘The forest is weakened’ –
Experts have called for major efforts to boost the fire-fighting capacity of Africa’s largest country, with more than four million hectares of forest.
An expert, who asked not to be named, told AFP that in the 1980s the country had 22 Grumman planes to fight wildfires, but they “were sold cheaply with no alternative solution suggested”.
According to Beldjoud, fires have destroyed more than 800 hectares of forest and 1,800 hectares of woodland since early August.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Aimene Benabderrahmane defended the government’s response, saying the country had ordered four new firefighting planes – but these would not be available until December.
He added that strong winds had made the blazes worse and said authorities were “using all their means” to put them out.
Retired academic and forestry expert Rafik Baba-Ahmed said in a video posted to social media that “wind speeds in excess of 90 kilometers per hour make the work of sea bombers difficult, if not impossible.”
He said poor land management compounded the problem.
“Today the forest is weakened. He was cut down,” he said.
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