Spanish authorities on Thursday removed the remains of three kings who ruled the Aragón region in the 11th century from a monastery threatened by a wildfire.
Their remains were taken to the provincial museum of Huesca, located 50 miles south of the monastery, for their protection until conditions improve, said the northeastern region’s vice-president Mar Vaquero.
After the wildfire that had been raging since Monday began moving toward the 10th century San Juan de la Peña monastery late on Thursday, concern that it could be engulfed by flames prompted authorities to launch a rescue operation, Vaquero told reporters.
An emergency military unit team managed to enter the monastery, located in a mountain range, and take ceremonial clothing belonging to an 18th-century count buried there, before the proximity of the flames forced them to flee.
The team returned a second time, accompanied by police officers and heritage officials, and removed the remains of the first three kings of Aragón — who ruled between 1035 and 1104 — from a pantheon within the monastery, as well as some historical paintings.
The wildfire had intensified earlier on Thursday, fuelled by higher temperatures and strong winds. It has burned more than 3.5 square miles and forced the evacuation of 16 towns, although the monastery remained unharmed on Friday morning.
Evacuations as wildfires spread
As large parts of Europe battle fires after a long stretch of hot and dry conditions, a raging wildfire in the province of Huelva, southern Spain, triggered an operation to evacuate around 700 people on Thursday.
More than 2,000 people evacuated the village of Gey in western Germany on Friday after a wildfire near the Belgian border, while France evacuated 525 people from the village of Luglon in its southwestern Landes region.
Meanwhile, Croatia and Greece both evacuated tourists from resorts as fires spread. Flames enveloped settlements and trees around Omis, a scenic town on Croatia’s prized Dalmatian coast surrounded by trees and rocky hills, officials said, injuring 40 and forcing 1,200 to evacuate.
More than 300 people were evacuated by boat from Siviri in northern Greece, south of the country’s second city, Thessaloniki.
People wearing face masks, some clutching children or pets, boarded dinghies and boats in the seaside town as a wildfire ate through the nearby forest and columns of smoke turned the cloudless sky a dark grey.
Nero’s Bridge emerges
The remains of an ancient bridge have emerged in Rome’s Tiber River, near St. Peter’s Basilica, after weeks with virtually no rain caused water levels to plunge.
The bridge — known as Nero’s Bridge, named for the former Roman emperor — once connected Rome’s city center with the Tiber’s right bank.
“Nero is the most famous person linked to this area, because precisely in Nero’s circus, where the Vatican is now located, the Apostle Peter was martyred,” said Antonella Bonini, an archaeologist at Rome’s cultural heritage superintendency.
“However, scholars consider the bridge to be older (than Nero’s era) — built by Caligula, Nero’s uncle,” she said, adding that it existed as early as 39 AD.
The Tiber’s flow has fallen below 80 cubic meters (2,825 cubic feet) per second, about half the historic average for the month of July, according to Giovanni Giganti, coordinator of the Rome civil protection service’s center for water management.
“We are facing a major water crisis. And it is a crisis that is also due to the fact that this winter we did have quite abundant rainfall, but then the dry periods ... were quite long,” Giganti said.
