A huge wildfire killed 12 people and injured more than 75 as it ripped through Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast, the health minister said on Friday.

Hundreds of animals have perished in the blaze that roared across the dry landscape.

The fire has left huge areas of charred and blackened land between the cities of Diyarbakir and Mardin, near the border with Syria.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said 12 people had died and 78 people suffered injuries and smoke inhalation. Five people were being treated in intensive care, he said.

Turkey’s pro-Kurdish DEM party, which won many municipalities in the southeast in local elections in March, criticised the government’s intervention as “late and insufficient”.