Greece latest fires: Evacuations begin in Corfu as Rhodes tourists fleeing bushfires spend their second night at the airport

This satellite image shows the area affected by forest fires in Rhodes, Greece on Sunday.

An outbreak of forest fires led to the “largest evacuation in Greek history” with around 2,500 people being evacuated from Corfu.

On Rhodes, some holidaymakers said they walked for miles in the sweltering heat to get to safety. The fires left blackened trees and dead animals lying on the road near burning cars.

Many tourists spent the night on the grounds of the airport, waiting for flights back home. “It was quite a struggle on the beach with the smoke,” said John Hope, a tourist from Manchester, England.

Tour operators Jet2, TUI and Corendon have canceled flights departing to Rhodes. Britain’s EasyJet said on Sunday it was operating two flights on Monday from Rhodes to London’s Gatwick airport in addition to the nine already operating between the island and Gatwick.

The airline said it would add another return flight on Tuesday.

On Sunday, Ryanair said its flights to and from Rhodes were operating as normal. The company’s chief financial officer, Neil Surhan, said the company was monitoring the situation on Monday.

“We have a lot of clients who want to go home. We are not going to leave them behind so we are just going back and forth.”

“It is not necessary in this period of time (to put more flights), we allow people to book on earlier flights.”

Tourists fleeing bushfires in Rhodes have had to sleep on the floor for a second night in a row while they wait for evacuations.

A mum who says she has experienced “hell on earth” was among British tourists forced to flee Rhodes this weekend as fierce bushfires continued to rage on the Greek holiday island.

Officials on the island, which lies southwest of Turkey in the Aegean Sea, have launched Greece’s largest-ever evacuation as swathes of land go up in flames, threatening popular holiday resorts.

Tourists were forced to take shelter in schools, sports stadiums, airports and alternative hotels as firefighters battled desperately to contain the blaze, which officials feared could intensify on Monday as winds more than doubled on the island.

Forest fires raged across Greece on Monday, forcing people to be evacuated from a beach on the island of Corfu while tourists crowded an airport in Rhodes after thousands fled hotels and resorts for the weekend.

Fires raging since Wednesday in Rhodes forced the evacuation of 19,000 people over the weekend as inferno reached seaside resorts on the southeastern coast of the island.

Rhodes and Corfu are among the top destinations in Greece for tourists from Britain and Germany.

“We are on the seventh day of the fire and it is not under control,” Rhodes Deputy Mayor Konstantinos Taraslias told state channel ERT.

The Greek Fire Service said about 2,500 people have been successfully evacuated from Corfu, with evacuations continuing on three islands.

About 2,466 people were evacuated overnight, according to AFP news agency spokesman Yannis Artobios, a spokesman for the fire department.

He said that no homes or hotels have been evacuated yet.

Maritime evacuations have begun from the Greek island of Corfu to take people fleeing wildfires off the island.

The Greek coast guard said about 59 people have been evacuated from Nisaki Beach on the northwest coast.

The evacuation was carried out using six coast guard vessels and nine private vessels.

Thousands of tourists and residents fleeing forest fires on the Greek island of Rhodes took refuge in shelters and slept in airports, and many were evacuated on private boats as the flames threatened coastal resorts and villages.

Another Greek island, Evia, has begun evacuating people as more wildfires rage after Corfu and Rhodes.

The authorities asked residents of four southern villages to leave for the town of Karistos.

The deputy governor of central Greece, Giorgos Keleditis, who was near one of the villages, told the state agency ANA-MPA that the situation is difficult, according to The Guardian.

“The fire may be two kilometers away, but the wind is strong, the growth is low, the smoke is thick, and the air is hard to breathe,” he said.

British airlines continue to sell flights for immediate departure from the UK to Rhodes despite bushfires that have led to the evacuation of thousands of tourists from the island.

Holiday companies Jet2, the UK’s largest tour operator, and Tui announced on Sunday that they would cancel all flights and imminent holidays to Rhodes and offer refunds due to the fires that raged on the Greek island six days ago.

But other airlines continue to offer seats on flights to Rhodes, and travel company Thomas Cook says most of its customers booked for Sunday and Monday travel are traveling as usual.

Our travel correspondent Simon Calder has more: