Exclusive
ESCAPE FROM HELL
My family with four kids was left running for our lives from the Rhodes fires – we waded neck-deep in water to escape
A BRITISH dad-of-four has described his family's hell as they fled the Rhodes inferno in the dead of night.
PE Teacher Daniel Jones had to wade into the ocean neck deep to get his young family onto a pleasure boat to escape the flames that chased them.
11
11
11
11
Daniel, 37, was holidaying with wife Hannah, 35, and their four kids, Ethel, 2, Oliver, 5, Albert, 7 and Rupert, 9, when they were evacuated from their luxury hotel at 10pm Saturday night.
The family, from Exeter, Devon, was staying at the Atlantica Dreams Resort in Gennadi along with grandparents Shirley, 68, and Gary, 72, when the sky turned orange and filled with smoke.
Daniel told The Sun: "We only arrived in Rhodes on Friday night, so Saturday was our first day by the pool.
"At around 12pm I looked up and the sun had disappeared and there was a long trail of smoke going on for miles.
read more on rhodes fire
"Eventually the whole hotel was shrouded in smoke, and there was an orange glow on the hillside. It was really eerie."
Daniel said over the course of the day hundreds of other holidaymakers arrived at their hotel having been evacuated from other resorts on the island.
"It was chaos, the lobby was like Heathrow airport. We packed our bags ready to leave but there was no communication from the tour operator about what we should do.
"Eventually an evacuation alarm sounded in the hotel and the manager said we all had to leave on foot.
Most read in The Sun
"We just followed the crowds and walked into the night dragging our cases and my wife pushing a buggy. The kids were exhausted, upset and crying and there was hysteria, a sense of panic.
"At some point a TUI rep said there were six coaches coming to pick us up and told us to wait, but nothing came. It was the hotel manager who told us to keep walking for our own safety.
"Eventually we bumped into two men from the Red Cross who told us we had to go to the beach."
Daniel said there was 400 people stranded on the beach in the pitch black.
It has been a nightmare, our holiday has been ruined and the kids traumatised
Daniel Jones
"There was still a lot of confusion, it was madness. There were no reps or anyone to tell us what was happening.
"There was a moment where you could clearly see the flames moving closer but there were no boats to escape, I felt completely powerless to protect my family."
Daniel said eventually some locals brought two pleasure cruisers into the shore and started loading people on.
"We were among the last to leave and I had to wade into the water with the kids. I was up to my neck and had to help them climb the ladder," he recalls.
11
11
11
11
"The kids were wearing pyjamas and were crying and soaked, it was awful, they were scared, it was heartbreaking to see."
Daniel said they sat on the boat for an hour and a half offshore while the captain worked out where he was going to take everybody.
They were eventually taken up the coast to the north of the island before being bungled on to a minibus and taken to a local school with dozens of other families.
"The locals have been amazing, they've given us food and drinks, but now we just want to go home, the whole experience has been pretty traumatic, especially for the children."
Are you in Rhodes right now? Tell us your story! Contact us at: [email protected] or [email protected]
Daniel and hundreds of other Brits are trying to arrange transport back to the UK.
He added: "It has been a nightmare, our holiday has been ruined and the kids traumatised.
"TUI are talking about taking us back to the hotel, but there's no way the kids will want to go back there after what's happened, we want to get home."
Up to 19,000 locals and tourists, including many Brits, have been forced to flee in the biggest evacuation effort Greece has ever seen as the fires on the popular island rage on.
Local police said that 16,000 people were evacuated by land and 3,000 by sea from 12 villages and several hotels.
Over 250 firefighters, helicopters, water-bombers and emergency rescuers are battling the worst blaze the country has ever experienced.
The fire, which broke out in the mountains on Tuesday, has been aided by strong winds and is engulfing large parts of the central-southern parts of the island, burning down buildings and hotels.
Yiannis Artopios, a fire service spokesman, said: “The focus now is to contain two major fronts in the south and central part of the island.
"The regions hit so far may account for less than 10 per cent of the island’s hotel infrastructure, but if left unchecked the blazes can threaten the remaining 90 per cent.”
Although hotter, drier and windy summers have brought more fires in recent years, it has not been confirmed how the wildfire first started.
Artopios said authorities were questioning suspected arsonists.
“Fires are not sparked on their own,” he told Skai TV. “They are triggered by the human hand, be it intentionally or not.
"We currently have several people being questioned in connection with their probable involvement.”
Extraordinary scenes show columns of tourists and locals travelling on foot and carrying their belongings and children down dusty roads.
Busloads of fleeing Brits were taken to makeshift camps in gyms, schools and hotel conference centres where they staged overnight on the floor.
British Embassy officials in Athens urged Brits to leave the area on Saturday evening - as flights to Rhodes continue to be cancelled.
Horror footage emerged of scores of people with young children desperately waiting to be loaded onto boats in total darkness as fires burned in the background.
Another British tourist who was forced to escape from the fires, described it feeling like "the end of the world".
Londoner Ian Morrison was staying in the Kiotari area when he watched the sea become "black with soot" and ash fall on people's heads.
After walking for miles and eventually hitching a ride to Gennadi beach, he told : "Over the next few hours, the amount of people in that area just increased and increased.
"Then as light fell, people became increasingly anxious about how they were going to get out from this.
"It was literally like the end of the world," he said as flames threatened to chase him down.
The fires have burned for nearly a week on the island as Greece has been hit by an extended spell of high temperatures and strong winds that has made it challenging to contain the blaze.
And the battle is expected to worsen today, with more whipping winds blasting across the island and driving the flames.
"The wind is expected to become more intense from 12 to 5 pm, without excluding the possibility that could happen earlier," said fire department spokesman Vassilis Vathrakoyiannis.
“This is not a fire that will be over tomorrow or the day after tomorrow,” he added. “It’ll be troubling us for days.”
Firefighters, backed by aircraft water-bombers and reinforcements from Slovakia battled three fronts on Sunday.
They are setting up firebreaks to prevent flames from spreading to a dense forest or threatening more residential areas.
Mum-of-three Helen Tonks, of Manchester, flew into Rhodes on Saturday night with her three daughters and husband ahead of a two-week sunshine break.
She told The Sun: “There was absolutely no communication whatsoever. We got out here and were told our hotel was among those evacuated.
"They put us on a coach and brought us to a school in Rhodes old town. There are hundreds of us here. We’ve been put up in makeshift dorms in classrooms.
"Dozens are sleeping on mattresses on the basketball court in the gymnasium.”
British holidaygoer James Beale was on his way to his hotel with his partner yesterday when their minibus was stopped and held for almost six hours.
"The whole skyline became covered in smoke, fire engines and police blasted past and suddenly we couldn't see anything," he told The Sun.
"The driver didn't speak English and we had no idea what was happening."
They never made it to their hotel and instead have been sleeping on a sheet on the floor of a hotel as they wait for a flight out of the chaos.
"We're not in a bad place like other people, but no one knows anything and Tui is just telling us to sit and wait," he added.
Jet2 has now cancelled all flights and holidays that were due to depart to Rhodes today, while promising scheduled flights will still fly out of the island.
Tui have also now cancelled all their flights and holidays to Rhodes up to and including Tuesday July 25.
The British ambassador to Greece said the Foreign Office had sent a "rapid deployment team" to help UK tourists who were among the thousands forced to flee.
It comes as Greece continues to face high temperatures - with forecasts of up to 45C going into next week.
The country also experienced an "insidious and dangerous" heat blast earlier this month as temperatures soaring to 40C.
Weather experts have declared 2023 an El Niño year - a natural phenomenon that occurs cyclically and causes fluctuations in the global climate.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
The UN’s World Meteorological Organization said it will raise temperatures around the world, and the effect is likely to continue for the rest of the year.
And despite the heat this summer, Europe's record temperature of 48.8C - recorded in 2021 in Sardinia, Sicily - has not been reached and is currently not forecast to be broken.
11
11
11
Topics