Firefighters in Greece were struggling to contain 82 wildfires burning across the country, 64 of which started on Sunday, the hottest day of the summer so far.
As well as huge blazes on the island of Rhodes, which forced 19,000 to flee, wildfires also broke out on the islands of Evia and Corfu.
On Evia, authorities told residents of four southern villages to evacuate to the town of Karystos, west of where the fire was advancing.
Central Greece vice-governor Giorgos Kelaiditis, who was near one of the villages, told state agency ANA-MPA that the situation was difficult. “The fire may be 2km (1.2 miles) away, but the wind is strong, the growth is low, the smoke thick and the air is hard to breathe,” he said. Northern Evia was devastated by wildfires in August 2021
Other fires requiring evacuations broke out on the north-east side of the island of Corfu and in the northern Peloponnese region, near the town of Aigio. Traffic on the old Athens-Patras national road, running across the coast, has been cut off.
Just before midnight on Sunday, authorities called for more evacuations from Corfu and the northern Peloponnese. In the case of Corfu, they said the fire was “moving southeast on a broad front” and added that private vessels were on standby to pick up evacuees.
A fire that broke out west of the important archaeological site of Epidaurus, including a famous ancient theatre, had been partly contained, the fire service said.
The Ministry of Climate Change and Civil Protection said the emergency on Rhodes had triggered “the largest evacuation from a wildfire in the country”.
Local police said 16,000 people were evacuated by land and 3,000 by sea from 12 villages and several hotels. Six people were briefly treated at a hospital for respiratory problems. A person who fell and broke a leg during a hotel evacuation and a pregnant woman remained hospitalised, the latter in good condition, authorities said.
A number of tourists were waiting to fly back home from Rhodes international airport.
The package holiday companies TUI and Jet2 cancelled flights to Rhodes. Greece’s Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport later announced that 14 TUI and Jet2 flights carrying 2,700 passengers would depart from Rhodes airport by 3am local time on Monday.
On Saturday and early Sunday, 70,000 passengers travelled through the airport, with some being arrivals, the ministry said. The announcement did not break down the figures by arrivals and departures.
British tourist Kevin Evans was evacuated twice on Saturday with his wife and three young children – first from Kiotari to Gennadi, then again as the fire approached the island’s capital in the north-east, he told Britain’s PA news agency.
“There were lots of people in Gennadi sent from the hotels – many in just swimsuits having been told to leave everything in the hotel,” he told PA. “As night fell, we could see the fire on the top of the hills in Kiotari. They said all the hotels were on fire.”
Rhodes travel agent Stelios Kotiadis confirmed to the Associated Press that the evacuation was hasty. “There was panic … The authorities were overwhelmed,” he said.
But, he said, the abandoned hotels “are in much better condition than reported in social media … They will be ready to reopen very soon if civil protection gives the go-ahead.”
Kotiadis said he and other travel agents sent buses to the island’s south-east to pick up evacuated tourists. They had to go the long way around, since the road running down Rhodes’ eastern side was blocked in places.
“There were 80-90 people cramming into 50-seater buses,” he said. He added that 90% of the evacuated tourists are from European countries.
The British ambassador to Greece, Matthew Lodge, said the UK government was sending a rapid deployment team to support British nationals on Rhodes.
The Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that personnel had set up a help desk at Rhodes international airport for visitors who had lost their travel documents.
The European Union has sent substantial reinforcements to help Greek authorities battle the fires. “Over 450 firefighters and seven airplanes from the EU have been operating in Greece as fires sprout across the country,” the EU commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management, Janez Lenarcic, said on Sunday afternoon.
European commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Sunday evening: “I called [Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis] to express our full support for Greece, which is confronted with devastating forest fires and a heavy heatwave due to climate change. Greece is handling this difficult situation with professionalism, putting emphasis on safely evacuating thousands of tourists, and can always count on European solidarity.”
The weather remained hot in the Mediterranean country on Sunday. A total of 180 locations experienced temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius (104F) and above. The highest reading, 46.4C (115.5F), was reached at the seaside town of Gytheio in southern Greece.
A relative respite from the heat on Monday, with highs of 38C (100F) forecast, will be followed by yet more high temperatures starting on Tuesday. However, it should get significantly cooler on Thursday, with temperatures in the low- to mid-30s, the country’s Meteorological Service said on Sunday evening.
With Associated Press
