Over 100 hospitalised, 150 homes damaged in Algeria blazes

More than 100 people were hospitalised after wildfires reached nearly 150 homes in a small town in north-eastern Algeria, the country's interior minister said on Wednesday.

The fires broke out on Tuesday in Seraidi, a town west of the city of Annaba surrounded by forests.

Civil protection crews were still battling the blazes on Wednesday morning, the minister said.

Interior Minister Said Sayoud told reporters at a local hospital that most of the hospitalised people were in a "stable and reassuring" condition, adding that more than 150 homes had been affected by the fires.

Algeria has been grappling with hundreds of wildfires for days, with at least six people dead in several provinces, according to the interior ministry.

Every summer, northern Algeria is struck by forest fires, a phenomenon exacerbated by drought and climate change.

Dozens of people have been killed in recent years and thousands of hectares of forest or farmland destroyed, along with numerous homes.

A court in Algiers said Wednesday that four people had been placed in pre-trial detention for "setting fires within forest areas" around northeastern Algeria's Constantine province.