Rhodes wildfires: British vacationer escapes ‘scene from Dante’s Inferno’ as helicopter water-bombs space

Britons stranded on the Greek vacation island of Rhodes have described their dramatic escapes from the wildfires.

One vacationer instructed how he escaped a “scene from Dante’s Inferno” because of a helicopter dropping water to create a path by way of a blaze.

Duncan Kemp was ready for evacuation coaches to reach at Lindian Village resort, in Rhodes Bay, when the fireplace “jumped the road and began to burn in front of reception”.

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There have been “uncontrollable scenes as people scrambled to get on coaches – kids screaming and crying and parents much the same,” he instructed Sky News.

One of the quite a few helicopters tackling greater than 80 fires throughout Greece dropped water on the wildfire to create a secure path out, he mentioned.

But there weren’t sufficient areas on the coaches.

Instead, the resort’s “brave” employees took Mr Kemp and different travellers in their very own automobiles to security.

Describing the approaching wildfire, Mr Kemp mentioned: “In scenes not out of place in Dante’s Inferno, the sky turned dark, the sun was blotted out and turned blood red, and it became obvious that something was not right.”

He continued: “We just want to get home now. We feel that we have been left to our own devices with no help. Don’t know whether our luggage will find us but just want to get away from this chaos.”

Dante’s Inferno, a poem written greater than 600 years in the past by Dante Alighieri, takes the reader on an intense journey by way of the darkest pits of hell.

Meanwhile, Damien and Karen Townsend have made it dwelling to the UK from Rhodes – however not earlier than a name so shut they thought they “were dead”.

The couple, from Devon, discovered a fireplace brigade had fashioned a fringe round their resort on the primary morning of their vacation, Saturday, earlier than “all the smoke, all of a sudden, turned orange”, mentioned Mr Townsend.

“Everything was orange. Ash started dropping all over us. You couldn’t breathe because the smoke was so thick,” he mentioned.

“I grabbed my wife and kids and we started running… we didn’t even know what direction to run in.”

The couple and their sons, Theo, 11, and Barnaby, 10, made it a number of kilometres alongside a seashore earlier than they turned to see “the flame racing towards us coming down the mountain,” mentioned Mr Townsend.

“It was roaring towards us and at that point I thought ‘we’re dead’. We’re not going to get out of this. It was coming so fast and the flames were half the size of a house – like 12ft. We were just terrified.”

He mentioned they ran as quick as they might amid the screams of different vacationers making an attempt to outpace the wildfire.

Mr Townsend mentioned helicopters and planes appeared overhead: “As we were running they were dropping water behind us… it felt like only a few hundred metres away.”

The subsequent few hours have been a blur – taking refuge in one other resort and getting a carry in a “beaten up van” to an evacuation centre, earlier than native buses took them to Rhodes International Airport.

Their bundle vacation firm, Mr Townsend mentioned, was nowhere to be seen.

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The household spent €600 on a few of the final seats on a flight out of Rhodes to Bristol within the early hours of Sunday morning.

“I felt so relieved but almost guilty that we had got out and there are so many other people out there who are going to be going through this terrible thing we’ve gone through for even longer.”

Meanwhile, a newly-wed couple celebrating their honeymoon on Rhodes have spoken about their “traumatic” expertise of being evacuated from their resort.

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Claire and Paul Jones, each 36 from Leicestershire, have been evacuated from the Village Rhodes Beach Resort in Lindian Village, close to Lardos, because the wildfire approached the resort.

“By the time we got our stuff and got to reception, which was probably another 10 minutes, everybody was at reception and you could see the fires,” Mrs Jones mentioned.

“They had come over the hill, they were halfway down the hill, and everybody was just panicking.”

Mrs Jones has mentioned she and her husband have been “very lucky” as managed to flee through a taxi to Faliraki within the north of the island.

“I keep thinking of little things, like there was a little girl on the bus screaming to her mum, ‘I don’t want to die’.

“The children have been petrified as a result of they might see the fireplace, it wasn’t a pleasant scenario.

“We needed to drive by way of two or three fires on both facet of the street, there was no means out, we needed to drive by way of them.

“It was really quite traumatic driving to where we went because you could see everyone fleeing their hotels, and people were walking along the beaches, walking along the roads, and they had babies and small children.”

Mrs Jones mentioned at one level they have been taken on a speedboat to a bigger boat within the route of Lindos on the island, earlier than “boat hopping” onto two extra boats.

“We had to boat hop in the middle of the sea, which was not very pleasant.

“We had to do this thrice, [once] in pitch-black darkish and you could possibly see the fireplace.”

Another family claimed they have been left £10,000 out of pocket after their holiday was cancelled due to wildfires.

Chris Elworthy, 42, a farmer from Faversham in Kent, was supposed to fly with easyJet to Rhodes on Saturday with his wife Emma, 43, and children, Thomas, 13, and Charlotte, 11, to reach a private villa in Pefkos.

The household have been on the aircraft at Gatwick Airport when information broke of the wildfire in Rhodes and their flight was abruptly cancelled.

However, the previous Royal Engineers officer mentioned easyJet shouldn’t be “helping at all” with a voucher or one other flight and the villa is refusing to supply a refund.

“We are now £10,000 out of pocket; easyJet is not helping at all with a flight, despite having promised on Twitter that they would provide a voucher or another flight… 24 hours later they have done nothing.”

“The villa is refusing to refund us, and the holiday insurance is saying that we’re not covered because we didn’t have the additional natural disaster cover on top of the ordinary cover.”

Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell mentioned as much as 10,000 British vacationers are on Rhodes as wildfires sweep throughout elements of the island.

Mr Mitchell made the remarks as journey agency Tui mentioned it had returned some holidaymakers to the UK from Rhodes on “three dedicated flights”.

More repatriation flights are as a result of arrive again within the UK on Monday as a part of efforts to get lots of of stranded British holidaymakers off the island.

It comes as sea evacuations have begun from a seashore in Corfu to move people fleeing wildfires on the Greek island.

The evacuation concerned six coast guard vessels and 9 personal vessels, with round 59 folks evacuated from Nissaki seashore on the northwest coast, the coast guard mentioned.