Greek authorities have issued an evacuation order for parts of Corfu after wildfires forced thousands of people to flee their hotels on the island of Rhodes.
Those in Santa, Megoula, Porta, Palia Perithia and Sinies were told to evacuate to Kasiopi due to fires on Corfu.
The order came after Jet2 and Tui cancelled all flights to Rhodes as wildfires continue to tear through the Greek holiday destination for a sixth consecutive day.
The Jet2 planes were scheduled to depart from the East Midlands, Leeds Bradford, Manchester, Newcastle and Stansted airports full of tourists bound for the Greek island. But the planes left emply and will instead be used to evacuate holidaymakers fleeing the blaze.
Thousands of tourists were forced to flee their hotels and images captured their dramatic evacuation off of beaches by a fleet of private boats while the fires raged in the background.
Becky Mulligan, a 29-year-old training manager from Leicester, was staying at the Princess Sun Hotel in the Kiotari resort on Rhodes’s southeast coast when she, her daughter, 5 and sister, 20 say they were forced to flee.
“I thought I was going to die. It was like hell on earth,” she told The Independent.
