GENEVA, June 20 (Xinhua) -- Climate change could greatly increase the risk of devastating fires like the one in Portugal over the weekend that has killed at least 64 people and injured 135 others, the UN special representative for disaster reduction said Tuesday.
Robert Glasser, the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction expressed his deep condolences to the families affected by the devastating fires in Portugal.
By Monday, 64 people, including a young fire fighter, were killed and 135 others injured in the fires which erupted in Pedrogao Granda, some 200km northeast of Lisbon, on Saturday and quickly spread into neighboring towns. It's the biggest tragedy in Portugal in more than four decades, as President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said.
Glasser urged countries to integrate climate change risk in their fire prevention and response planning. "The fire highlights the urgency of global efforts to reduce greenhouse gases as quickly as possible," he added.
The Portuguese authority has attributed the devastating fires to high temperatures, low humidity and strong winds when the Iberian peninsula was suffering from a severe heatwave that led to temperatures exceeding 40C in some regions.
Last year, Portugal was also hit by a series of fires that cost more than 100,000 hectares of the mainland.
The World Meteorological Organization said on Tuesday that parts of Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and the United States have seen extremely high May and June temperatures, with a number of records broken. The heatwaves are unusually early, as the Earth is experiencing another exceptionally warm year.
