KYIV: Four people died and nine were hospitalised as a forest fire swept through villages in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine on Tuesday, Ukraine’s emergency services said.

The fire has destroyed 80 dacha holiday cottages and 30 houses in two villages, the service said in a statement.

This spring, forest fires around the defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant in the north of the country and elsewhere pushed pollution levels in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv to the worst in the world.