Wildfires raging across northern Algeria amid a heatwave have killed 15 people, injured 26 others and forced mass evacuations.
The North African country has recorded 97 fires across 16 provinces, the worst in Bejaia, Bouira and Jijel, but most have been put out, according to a statement released by the interior ministry on Monday.
Fanned by strong winds and with temperatures hitting 48 degrees Celsius (118 Fahrenheit), the fires have raged through residential areas.
Some 1,500 people had been evacuated from the three provinces east of the capital Algiers, according to the ministry.
It added that 7,500 firefighters and 350 firetrucks were mobilised to fight the flames, aided by aerial fire-fighting support.
Six provinces
The ministry said operations were underway to extinguish fires in six provinces, calling on citizens to "avoid areas affected by the fires and to use the toll-free numbers available for any reports" of new blazes.
"Civil protection services remain mobilised until the fires are completely extinguished," the ministry said.
Similar fires regularly rage through areas of vegetation in Algeria in summer, and this year have been exacerbated by heat waves that have seen several countries across the Mediterranean breaking temperature records.
In August 2022, massive blazes killed 37 in Algeria's northeastern El Tarf province.
It was preceded by the deadliest summer in decades, with 90 people killed in such fires in 2021, particularly the Kabylie region.
