No respite as islands evacuated....

Greece wildfires blaze with no respite as islands evacuated

Record-breaking temperatures hit the mainland as infernos threaten tourist hotspots.

BY NEKTARIA STAMOULI

Wildfires on Monday continued to burn across Greece with no respite, forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate popular tourist destinations.

The outlook is dire, with strong winds forecast that will fan the flames amid ongoing scorching temperatures. The mercury reached 43C in Athens on Sunday afternoon, while a record-breaking maximum temperature of 46.4C was recorded in Cytheio, Peloponnese, according to the Athens National Observatory.

The most serious blaze firefighters are battling is on the island of Rhodes in the southern Aegean Sea. “We are in the seventh day of the fire and it hasn’t been controlled,” Rhodes Deputy Mayor Konstantinos Taraslias told Greek state TV ERT on Monday, as new evacuations were ordered.

Thousands of people also had to evacuate 17 settlements in Corfu, another popular island destination, especially among British and German tourists. Emergency services were also dealing with fires on the islands of Evia, east of Athens, and Aigio, southwest of Athens.

Over the weekend, some 19,000 holidaymakers had to flee from resorts and tourist villages on Rhodes to escape the flames.

Tourists left their 5-star luxury hotels and were forced to the beach where they were stranded for hours before coastguard or private boats took them to safety. Some had to spend the night in hotel lobbies, gyms, schools or boats docked at the port. Holidaymakers said they had to walk for miles in sweltering heat without guidance on how to reach safety, though others praised locals for their support

Rhodes is particularly popular with British tourists and the British ambassador to Greece, Matthew Lodge, said the U.K. government was sending a rapid deployment team to support them.

The Greek foreign ministry has set up a helpdesk to facilitate the departure of visitors who have lost travel documents, in cooperation with embassies, as some were left only with their bathing suits.

More than 450 firefighters and seven planes from the EU have been operating in the country.

“Greece is handling this difficult situation with professionalism, putting emphasis on safely evacuating thousands of tourists, and can always count on European solidarity. EU firefighters are already on the ground,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tweeted on Sunday. 

But the response of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis' government is being attacked by the opposition, which accuses it of mismanaging the disaster and saying that evacuation is the only plan when a wildfire breaks out.

“The duration and extent of the disaster reveal that the government had not properly prepared the state mechanism for the fires,” main opposition Syriza MP Efi Achtsioglou said.