Greek wildfires: Rhodes burns through the night
STORY: Paradise on fire.
Forests on the Greek island getaway of Rhodes blazed through the night on Sunday, leaving the sky glowing orange.
Drone footage showed wildfires razing acres of ground, in a disaster that has forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of tourists and locals.
Diagoras International Airport was seen earlier in the day crammed with people, many sleeping while they waited for news of rescue.
Rhodes is a hugely popular holiday destination, particularly with visitors from Britain.
Tourists told Reuters about the “chaos” they’d witnessed.
"Basically, you could see the fire eventually on the mountain top. Panic, everyone dashing about, fleeing for buses."
"I don't know how many tourists there are in Faliraki, but evacuating that area, it's going to be impossible."
Others had talked about walking for miles in scorching heat to reach safety, with footage from Saturday showing scores of people walking across beaches.
Thousands reportedly also had to spend the night here, and in the streets.
Greece said the operation to get people to safety was the biggest of its kind in emergency conditions.
The Greek transport ministry said TUI and Jet2, which handle the bulk of tourism to Rhodes, planned 14 scheduled flights from Rhodes airport, transferring about 2,700 passengers until 3:00 a.m. local time.
Satellite images of Rhodes before and after the fires showed the extent of the blazes and the destruction they have wrought.
Aerial footage released by the Turkish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry showed aircraft helping fight the fires.
Fires are common in Greece, but climate change has led to more extreme heat waves across southern Europe and many parts of the world.
Temperatures over the past week have exceeded 104 degrees Fahrenheit in many parts of Greece.
In addition to Rhodes, emergency services were dealing with fires across a series of other locations in Greece.
Despite the evacuations, one government official said the fires on the island had been largely contained.
