Thousands more evacuated as Greece ’at war’ with fires
Authorities evacuated nearly 2,500 people from the Greek island of Corfu on Monday as the heat-battered nation was “at war” with several wildfires.
Tens of thousands of people have already fled blazes on the island of Rhodes, with many frightened tourists scrambling to get home on evacuation flights, according to phys.org.
About 2,400 visitors and locals were evacuated from the Ionian tourist island of Corfu from Sunday into Monday, a fire service spokesman said, adding that the departures were a precaution.
“We are at war and are exclusively geared towards the fire front,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told parliament, warning that the nation faced “another three difficult days ahead” before high temperatures are forecast to ease.
Greece has been sweltering under a lengthy spell of extreme heat that has exacerbated wildfire risk and left visitors stranded in peak tourist season.
Kelly Squirrel, a transport administrator from the United Kingdom, said police had ordered people from her hotel on Rhodes to evacuate.
“We had to keep walking,” she told AFP at the international airport. “So we walked for about six hours in the heat.”
Rhodes, which counted 2.5 million visitor arrivals in 2022, is one of Greece’s leading holiday destinations.
Greek television broadcast images of long lines of people, some in beachwear, lugging suitcases along the island’s roads on Saturday, when the evacuations were ordered.