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ISSUE NO. 1737
18 - 24 October 2018
Newspaper in Spain 2017 & 2018
COSTA DE ALMERÍA YOUR PAPER, YOUR VOICE, YOUR OPINION
Wildfire stats Almeria hit hard by blazes
INFLAMED: Almeria suffered 33 wildfires this year. ALMERIA Province was among those in Andalucia most affected by wildfires this year with hundreds of hectares of forests and scrubland gutted by blazes, according to official data. Plan Infoca’s annual report on blaze outbrea k s i n t h e r e g i o n s tate d th at more than 364 hectares of land were burned during this year’s high risk period. The high risk period was declared over last Monday, having lasted four months. THREE people have died and 18 were reported missing after a boat carrying 56 migrants was shipwrecked off the coast of Almeria Province on Sunday. Coast guards were despatched to the Alboran Sea after receiving reports that th e b o a t h a d l e f t th e Moroccan town of Nador and was sailing for Spain. Salv a m e n t o Ma r i t imo sources said the boat was sinking when the Sasemar
Data from Plan Infoca, Andalucia’s wildfire taskforce, showed that land burnt in Almeria accounted for more than 10 per cent of the land gutted by fires d u rin g the pe riod. The tota l amount of land affected by fires in Andalucia was almost 3,300 hectares. Plan Infoca said on Twitter in its last fire warning last Monday that people’s caution should not go away with the end of the high risk period. “It has been a pleasure to share information about the excellent work
done by all those who collaborate together on defending our natural heritage,” the agency said. Jose Fiscal, the Junta de Andalucia’s environment spokesperson, said Plan Infoca had undertaken ‘exceptional’ work throughout the high-risk period. Firefighters were called out a total of 33 times in Almeria Province, with blazes largely striking scrubland. The majority of fires affected areas of less than one hectare, according to Plan Infoca figures.
Boat wreck 101 maritime rescue helicopter found them. The 35 s u rv iv o rs , b elie v ed to be from sub-Saharan Africa, were taken to Almeria City’s port after the Salvamar Spica boat took them on board. T h e re s c u e c o mes a s coast guards picked up 751 people from 15 boats in the Alboran Sea and the Strait
of Gibraltar in a 24-hour time frame.
It also follows comments from Almeria police who said temporary accomodation facilities at the port and in Almeria City were nearing their capacity.
WWW.EUROWEEKLYNEWS.COM
‘Scam’ trial A DEFENDANT due to be tried on charges of allegedly making more than €121,000 from false online sales faces up to nine years in prison if found guilty. Almeria’s Provincial Prosecutor’s Office claimed in its initial submissions to the courts that the defendant scammed customers out of thousands between May 2009 and December 2013. The defendant, along with two others, advertised products for sale online but did not ship them to buyers after taking their money, prosecutors added. The goods were priced at below market rates to deliberately entice customers to buy items which were allegedly ‘non-existent.’ The products advertised included computers, sound systems, high-end mobile phones and other electronic goods. The other two defendants each face jail terms of up to six years if convicted at the upcoming trial.