Civil defense

Attica, the northeastern Peloponnese, Evia, the Aegean islands and much of Crete remain at high risk of fire on Tuesday, the General Secretariat for Civil Protection has announced.

Issuing its third highest fire alert, the Interior Ministry's General Secretariat for Civil Protection instructed all state services, as well as municipal and regional authorities, to be on alert.

Greece has a civil protection plan. But the long document was virtually worthless on Monday as a killer fire burnt at least 83 people to death.

With an investigation on the causes of the blaze ongoing, witnesses, firemen and mayors agree on one thing: There was no evacuation order. But they cannot agree on who should have made the call.

With dusty desert sprawled across the region, Middle Eastern and north African nations must prepare better for drought as water shortages look set to worsen, the United Nations said on June 15.

The 40th meeting of the Directors-General for Civil Protection of the EU, of the European Economic Area and of the Candidate Countries was held on 31 May and 1 June in Sofia. Representatives of the European Commission and the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU also took part in the meeting.

About half of the wetlands in Turkey have dried up in the last 40 years, due to a combination of increasing temperatures, drought and excessive abstraction of water for agriculture, according to the Istanbul-based Society for the Protection of Nature (DHKD), a conservation non-governmental organization.

More than 1,000 people, mostly women and children, are in urgent need of medical evacuations from Syria's besieged enclave of Eastern Ghouta, the United Nations said on Monday, cited by AFP .

Athens is among the European capitals that appear set to experience the worst increases in both droughts and heat waves in the future, according to a landmark study by the University of Newcastle using all climate models.

he civil defense employee who pushed the wrong button, causing more than a million people in Hawaii to fear that they were about to be struck by a nuclear missile Saturday, will be reassigned, emergency officials confirmed on Sunday, FOX news reports.

BELGRADE - The migrant crisis, which saw around a million people pass through Serbia, posed new challenges for local communities and self-government authorities - the citizens demonstrated humaneness and the authorities became aware of the significance of improving resilience to various crises and ensuring the necessary infrastructure, a panel was told Friday.

A new plan being put forward by the European Commission for managing natural disasters like the deadly flash floods that hit western Attica last week contains significant incentives for European Union member-states to strengthen their prevention and management systems.