Wildfires continue to blaze on multiple islands in Greece as visitors are evacuated from the popular tourist spots.
The Greek island of Rhodes seems to be the most heavily impacted isle, with thousands of people forced to evacuate the normally idyllic destination.
Rhodes travel agent, Stelios Kotiadis, told Associated Press the evacuation had been rushed.
“There was panic. … the authorities were overwhelmed,” he stated.
But Kotiadis said 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 ordered buses to pick up fleeing travellers.
With 90 per cent of the evacuated tourists from European countries, he said “there were 80-90 people cramming into 50-seater buses”.
Greek authorities said nearly 20,000 people were forced to leave several parts of Rhodes, which has now been burning for around a week, AP reported.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Climate Change and Civil Protection said it was “the largest evacuation from a wildfire in the country”.
According to Reuters, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told parliament, ”for the next few weeks we must be on constant alert. We are at war. We will rebuild what we lost, we will compensate those who were hurt”.
“The climate crisis is already here, it will manifest itself everywhere in the Mediterranean with greater disasters,” he said.
Special flights
UK-based low cost carrier, Jet2.com confirmed on Monday that it was operating four repatriation flights from Rhodes to bring customers back to Britain.
“This is in addition to over 50 scheduled flights operating between Rhodes and the UK this week (Sunday 23 July – Sunday 30 July),” the airline said in a statement.
Another British airline, easyJet has also laid on extra Greek flights.
“We will be operating two repatriation flights tomorrow from Rhodes to Gatwick in addition to our scheduled flights. We will also operate a further repatriation flight on Tuesday,” the carrier said on social media.
Meanwhile, travel giant TUI Group said its “aircraft will fly out empty to Rhodes so scheduled inbound flights will take place to bring guests back to their home countries”.
“Guests with bookings whose holidays start in the coming days up to and including Sunday, 30 July 2023, can rebook for other destinations or cancel their trip free of charge. We therefore encourage customers with a planned holiday to Rhodes in the coming days, to switch to other destinations.”
In a statement, Germany-based TUI said it had “around 39,000 guests on the island, 7,800 of whom were affected by the situation”.
“They were taken to other locations on the island and are staying in hotels or accommodation designated by the local authorities.”
According to Reuters, Air France was also flying from Rhodes with increased capacity.
However, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary said his airline had not seen a mass cancellation of bookings to Rhodes, possibly due to fires burning on the opposite side of the island to the main airport and most of the resorts.
Other islands
Elsewhere, the popular Greek islands of Corfu and Evia have also launched evacuations due to wildfires.
On Sunday, authorities ordered thousands of people to leave Corfu’s Santa, Megoula, Porta, Palia, Perithia and Sinies regions, Euronews reported.
According to AP, on Evia, where the most serious fires burned on Sunday, authorities told residents of four southern villages to evacuate to the town of Karystos.
While Greece is no stranger to summertime wildfires, climate change has worsened the situation.
Last Friday, a climate expert told Reuters heatwaves would likely persist in a large part of the northern hemisphere throughout August.
Tourism accounts for 18 per cent of Greece’s GDP and one in five jobs.
