Turkey, Bulgaria battle wildfires

Firefighters battled blazes across Turkey and Bulgaria on Monday as a deadly heatwave went into a second week around much of the Mediterranean.

There have been at least 14 deaths in the past week in Turkey and about 20 villages have been evacuated, according to officials.

In neighbouring Bulgaria, emergency services fought more than 160 wildfires across the country on Monday. Greece also struggled to clear up after a week of forest fires and Spanish planes went to help Portuguese firefighters tackling a blaze on a remote mountain.

"We are burning up, we don't even know where to go anymore," Asmin Gezginci, 24, said while returning from a park to her home in the Kurdish-majority southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir.

Temperatures soared to a record high of 50.5 degrees Celsius (123 Fahrenheit) on Friday in Silopi, two hours from Gezginci's home. AFP