Hundreds of French firefighters battled a raging blaze near the Mediterranean resort of Saint-Tropez on Tuesday, with thousands of residents and holidaymakers forced to evacuate. 

Roughly 750 firefighters using high-pressure hoses and water-dropping aircraft were attempting to control the flames, which began racing through a nature reserve on Monday evening.

Israeli firefighters battled flames for a second day in the hills west of Jerusalem, forcing the evacuation of five communities and prompting the government to ask for international help.

"The Greek foreign minister already said he will help as much as possible," Foreign Minister Yair Lapid wrote on Twitter.

At least 21 people died as heavy downpours struck central China's Hubei province, authorities said Friday, weeks after record floods wreaked havoc and killed hundreds in a neighboring province.

China has been battered by unprecedented rains in recent months, extreme weather that experts say is increasingly common due to global warming.

At least 2,000 people were evacuated on Friday after a massive landslide in India's ecologically fragile Himalayan north blocked a major river, officials said.

The people were evacuated from 13 villages in the Lahaul area of Himachal Pradesh state as a "preventative measure" in case of flash floods, a senior district official told AFP.

Fires burning for over a week that caused Greece's worst ecological disaster in decades were finally placed under control Friday, the fire department said.

"As of yesterday, there is no major active front, just scattered pockets," a fire department spokesman told AFP.

They are best known for bike-riding, but the climate-vulnerable Dutch are leading the way for electric cars with the largest number of charging stations in Europe.

Teslas and other vehicles can be seen plugged in on practically every street corner thanks to a network of some 75,000 stations -- nearly a third of the entire EU total.

The death toll from Turkey's flash floods along its northern Black Sea coast reached 27 on Friday, the disaster and emergency management authority said, rising by 10 overnight.

Thousands of stranded Indians were rescued Thursday from flooded villages along the Ganges after the river rose above its danger level in the country's most populous state.

The waterway surged to two meters (6.5 feet) above normal in the city of Allahabad, which has experienced its worst flooding in decades after days of torrential rain.

Italian firefighters said Thursday they had battled more than 500 blazes overnight as another death was reported, taking the total toll linked to wildfires to four over the past week.

An anticyclone dubbed Lucifer is sweeping across Italy, sending temperatures soaring and causing what is believed to be a new European record of 48.8 degrees Celsius (119.8 Fahrenheit) in Sicily on Wednesday.

Wildfires fanned by blistering temperatures and tinder-dry conditions have killed at least 42 people in Algeria, authorities said on Tuesday, adding that the fires had criminal origins.