Rhodes wildfire escape \u2018like the end of the world\u2019 \u2013\u00a0British survivorIan Murison, from London, is among the British tourists who was rescued from the beach in Rhodes by the small boats operation.<\/p>\n
He was staying in the Kiotari area of Rhodes, on the southeast of the island near to Lindos, when the wildfires approached his hotel on Saturday.<\/p>\n
He told Sky News he was having breakfast on the beach when the sky turned orange and dark.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe noticed that the sea had started to become black with soot and actually people were coming out of the sea noticing ash was falling on to their heads.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can only describe it as almost a movie experience where everyone\u2019s looking into the sky as it got a very strange orange colour, and everybody was just looking around going, \u2018what\u2019s going on?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Murison said management started to evacuate his hotel but there were not enough vehicles, so he and his family started walking 5km down the road, eventually getting a lift to Gennadi beach.<\/p>\n
People evacuate by boats during a wildfire in Kiotari village<\/p>\n
(EPA)<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we arrived, it was just a few hundred people – there were a couple of cafes and bars and they were serving beers and soft drinks, and everybody was just happy, thinking \u2018great, we\u2019ve got away from the fire\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then over the next few hours, the amount of people in that area just increased and increased, and then as light fell, people became increasingly anxious about how they were going to get out from this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Murison said they were told boats were on their way to collect them, triggering a rush of people to a nearby car park.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was literally like the end of the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the flames were now far more visible because of course it\u2019s night-time and we couldn\u2019t see that during the day.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuddenly there were leaping flames into the sky, and the sky was completely orange in the distance – so that sort of set about a level of panic.\u201d<\/p>\n
The place was littered with suitcases because they were throwing them off the boats <\/p>\n
Ian Murison<\/p>\n
Mr Murison said he and his family got on to one of the small boats that were taking people out to bigger vessels to transport them north to Rhodes Town.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were still hundreds of people, maybe a thousand people, on the beach when we left it, and the place was littered with suitcases because they were throwing them off the boats.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reflecting on his ordeal, Mr Murison said: \u201cThe mood was general panic.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy the time it gets to getting on to the boats and things like that, there\u2019s a lot of pushing and shoving, and there\u2019s a lot of people, a lot of children crying as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I\u2019m glad that\u2019s all behind us now. Hopefully we can just finish up… in a bit of a calmer mood.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rhodes wildfire escape \u2018like the end of the world\u2019 \u2013\u00a0British survivorIan Murison, from London, is among the British tourists who was rescued from the beach in Rhodes by the small boats operation. He was staying in the Kiotari area of Rhodes, on the southeast of the island near to Lindos, when the wildfires approached his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n