Wildfires across Algeria kill at least 34

ALGIERS — Wildfires raging across Algeria during a blistering heat wave have killed more than 30 people and forced mass evacuations, the government said on Monday.

As temperatures hit 48 C in parts of the North African country, it recorded 97 blazes across 16 provinces, fanned by strong winds, the Interior Ministry said.

The fires killed at least 34 people, including 10 soldiers, as the fires raged through residential areas, the Interior Ministry said, revising an earlier toll of 15 dead.

Local Soummam Radio reported that hundreds of others were injured in the flames.

Nearly 1,500 people were evacuated from Bejaia, Bouira and Jijel provinces, east of the capital Algiers, according to the ministry.

The three provinces in Algeria's Mediterranean coastal region have seen the worst of the fires.

President Abdelmadjid Tebboune on Monday expressed his condolences to the families of the deceased.

The Interior Ministry said 7,500 firefighters and 350 fire trucks were mobilized with aerial support to fight the flames.

Operations were underway to extinguish fires in six provinces, it added, calling on citizens to "avoid areas affected by the fires" and to report new blazes on toll-free phone numbers.

"Civil protection services remain mobilized until the fires are completely extinguished," the ministry said.

Bejaia's prosecutor's office has ordered a preliminary probe to identify the causes of the blazes, it said in a statement.

Images shared by local media showed fields and forests that had caught fire in the area as well as charred vehicles and storefronts destroyed by the flames.

In the northeastern Tizi Ouzou Province, 15 fires were extinguished late on Sunday, according to civil protection forces.

Fires regularly rage through forests and fields in Algeria in summer, and have been exacerbated by a heat wave this year that has seen several Mediterranean countries break temperature records.

In neighboring Tunisia, temperatures neared 50 C on Monday.

Tunisia's state energy supplier STEG announced planned half-hour to one-hour power cuts in a bid to preserve the network's performance.

Fires raged again on Monday in a Tunisian pine forest near the border with Algeria, after another blaze in the area last week.

At least 300 people were evacuated by sea and land from Melloula, according to the national guard.

Agencies - Xinhua