Israel sees the worst forest fire in history

Israel, Dec 3: Israel's Mount Carmel is a raging inferno and is experiencing the worst forest and bush fire in modern history. The fire is reported to have initiated by arsonists and the parched up forest has accelerated the spread of fire in the illegal landfill site.

The fire that broke out Thursday afternoon, still rages on. International aid is flowing into the ravaged country to putout the deadly fire even as casualties keep mounting. Thursday saw the death of 40 people and another 45 injured as they were trapped in an overturned bus that caught fire.

Inspite of the concerted efforts by Israeli firefighting officials, they have not been able to curb the fire yet. According to Haifa Fire Department spokesman Hezi Levi, “the fire is completely out of control by our combined fire fighting units". Speaking to Israel"s Channel 2 TV station, Levi added, “this is the worst fire disaster since the founding of the State of Israel. It"s not going to take hours to extinguish but days." He said that most of the 200 tons of fire extinguishing chemicals in reserve has been used up and more need to be brought from abroad.

International help is pouring in to the fire-ravaged country including Cyprus, Greece, Italy, and Russia. An estimated 14,000 people have been evacuated and 3,500 acres of forest have been wiped out.

Israeli Ministry of Health has requested people not to use hazardous chemicals and to stay indoors. The national electric company IEC has issued directives for electric appliances to be switched off to reduce load on the grid. Power lines have been damaged as well.

Israel is facing a drought and has received very less rain than what was expected.

OneIndia News