A relaxed week with sea and beach took a dramatic turn for a couple from Ried im Innkreis (Upper Austria) and their grandson (6) on Sunday night. They had to flee their hotel from a huge forest fire.
The Saturday actually started quite unspectacular. “We got up and saw a lot of smoke. But it didn’t look that dramatic,” says Sandra Pfeil-Ehrengruber, who has been enjoying life with her husband Kurt and grandson Paula (6) for a week on the holiday island of Rhodes in Greece. Anxious waiting But the situation became more dramatic from hour to hour. “We don’t know if we won’t be evacuated after all,” said the woman from the Innviertel around 5:30 p.m. Three hours later, the three had to leave the hotel as quickly as possible. “The time has come, we are being evacuated. We must go to a nearby town. The fire is so close,” Sandra Pfeil-Ehrengruber describes the dramatic scenes.Military fetched touristsThe Greek military later fetched the hotel guests by truck and brought the three people from the Innviertel to a nearby beach. However, many tourists fled on foot to a nearby beach. Some even dragged their luggage with them. However, they had to leave it on the beach. The tourists and also the Innviertler were then rescued by boats around 1 a.m. and taken to safety. According to the coast guard, more than 2000 people were picked up by ships and taken to another, safer beach on the island from the beaches of Kiotari and Lardos (that’s where the Innviertler were) in the east of the Mediterranean island. More than 30 private vessels were involved in this evacuation operation, led by three Coast Guard vessels.
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