A heat wave baking Greece is likely to become the longest the country has ever recorded, experts say, as the country battles wildfires and restricts access to its popular tourist sites, Report informs via CNN.
Visiting hours for the Acropolis and other archaeological sites have been revised with temperatures soaring. Staff at some sites are on strike to protests working conditions.
“We will probably go through 15 to 16 days of a heat wave, which has never happened before in our country,” the Director of Research at the National Observatory of Athens Kostas Lagouvardos told CNN.
He told CNN that the streak could go beyond those days, but at the moment “it’s hard to predict.”
The longest continuous heatwave that Greece has faced was 12 days long, back in July 1987, Lagouvardos said.
Lagouvardos said temperatures in Athens this summer could possibly break the city’s all-time record, which was set in June 2007, when Athens registered 44.8 degrees Celsius (112.64 degrees Fahrenheit).
The authorities have been battling wildfires in several areas, including the island of Rhodes where Reuters said hundreds have been forced to evacuate.
