On the island of Rhodes, tourists and residents flee the fires by car, boat or on foot

By car, boat or on foot, tens of thousands of people have had to leave their homes on the tourist island of Rhodes, Greece, due to violent fires.

On social networks, some vacationers share images of hundreds of people in single file on the roads, waiting to board a bus taking them to the nearest accommodation center. All this under an orange sky or masked by the smoke from the fires.

The police spokeswoman welcomed the success of “the largest evacuation operation ever carried out in Greece”. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has, for its part, opened a crisis unit in Athens to facilitate the repatriation of foreign tourists.