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Greece: wildfires break out on Corfu and Evia as
19,000 flee Rhodes blazes
Boats ready to pick up evacuees on Corfu as heatwave
continues and firefighters tackle blazes on Rhodes that sparked Greece’s
largest wildfire evacuation
Guardian
staff and agencies
Mon 24 Jul
2023 06.15 BST
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.
Tourists
line up at check-in counters as they wait for departing planes at the Rhodes
airport, after being evacuated following a wildfire on the island.
Tourists
line up at check-in counters as they wait for departing planes at the Rhodes
airport, after being evacuated following a wildfire on the island. Photograph:
Nicolas Economou/Reuters
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
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