Another terrible story of British tourists fleeing the fire on the island of Rhodes, told the British Daily Star. “When the fire reached the hotel, they turned on the sirens and told everyone to run,” say tourists who had to endure a “battle for a seat on the bus.”
Two families of British tourists with small children in their arms, for example, told the publication that when the fires began to approach their hotel, they made the decision to flee on foot, along with many other families, despite being advised to stay where they were. They ended up marching for more than five kilometers in 42-degree heat, eventually evacuating along with the locals to escape hell.
“We called the travel company and they told us not to worry and stay where we were. Within an hour, the fire had reached the hotel grounds. They just turned on the sirens and ordered everyone to run. And we were running with small children, luggage and no idea where we were going. At first we walked through the 42-degree heat with no indication of where to go. Screaming children who are absolutely horrified and crying adults everywhere. The locals stopped and picked us up to save us from the fire literally a few meters away,” said the frightened tourist.
According to her, the fire eventually blocked the tourists from the road and they were told to go to the beach along with thousands of other tourists. “Thick black smoke and ash that rained down on us. The children were completely shocked. Not to mention that there was no electricity, so there was no light – it was pitch black, except for the glow from the flames. We were then told to walk another three miles uphill at 11pm to another area as the fire got too close to the beach. We then fought with other people to get on the buses and try to get our children to safety,” the tourist said. At the same time, at the time of Monday, they failed to fly from Rhodes, since it was impossible to get to the airport due to fires.
At the moment, the largest evacuation due to forest fires in the history of Greece is underway: 19,000 vacationers were urgently taken from the beaches of the popular island of Rhodes. A critical situation unfolded in the southeast of the resort island: thousands of beach tourists were trapped and were forced to flee from hotels and flee from fire by sea. Hundreds of firefighters and rescuers are fighting the fire, but the heat that the African anticyclone brought and covered southern Europe, coupled with the wind, works against the army and volunteers. Read the details here.
At the same time, tourists have to be taken out even through other countries – for example, the first 95 tourists taken by ferry by sea arrived in Turkish Marmaris. There are two more ferries “under steam”, also ready to take out tourists, and tour operators and local authorities are thinking through the logistics (read here)
Tourists escaping from the “fiery hell” tell terrible stories – some had to evacuate in an incomprehensible direction on foot, others have already said goodbye to their luggage, suggesting that it was gone or even burned down along with the hotel – but they are already happy that they survived. Details in this TURPROM article.
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