During the night, Swedes have begun to be evacuated from hotels on Rhodes.
Swedish Joanna and her family were woken up by a VMA and ran outside – where ash rained from the sky.
The night has been spent on a stone floor in a school.
– Children are sad, sleep on the floor and the heat takes a toll on everyone, she says.
The forest fires continue to ravage Rhodes and several hundred Swedes have been evacuated from their hotels.
Swedish Joanna Alkemyr was sleeping in the hotel in Lardos with her husband and their two children, aged eleven and 15, when she was suddenly awakened by a VMA during the night of Sunday.
– We just threw the clothes into the suitcases and ran out. Ash rained from the sky and it was full of people, several hundred, who gathered on the sidewalk. Many were worried, she says.
Behind the hotel, up in the mountains, they could see the fire flaring up across the night sky in a red glow.
When no bus arrived to evacuate the residents of the hotel, hotel staff began calling around to other nearby hotels to ask for assistance in evacuating with their buses. When the first bus arrived, even the bus driver was in shock, says Joanna Alkemyr.
– He didn’t know where he was going to drive us, she says.
Crowded in classrooms on stone floors
After more than two hours, the family arrived with a bus that took the family to a school in Rhodes town. Something they discovered themselves after checking the map function on the mobile phones.
– We have crammed 20 people into every single classroom, others crowd the school corridors. There are adults, children, people with diabetes… There is no AC, we have no access to running water and we have torn down curtains so that the children have something softer to lie on than stone floors.
The night has been tough, especially for the children. Many have been worried, the children have cried and asked when they will be able to go home.
– The children have been completely destroyed. They have slept maybe two hours during the night. It feels terrible that we as parents cannot give our children a reassuring answer about what will happen.
When it is 07 in the morning, the temperature has reached over 40 degrees and Johanna Alkemyr has gone out to try to buy food for the family.
– Local residents have come to the school with water and cookies during the night, they have been absolutely fantastic. But in this heat, you can’t survive for long without proper nutrition.
Joanna Alkemyr’s family has not yet got hold of the tour operator TUI, she says.
FACTSVing has evacuated travelers
Ving has evacuated around 50 travelers during the afternoon, evening and night on Saturday.
– It took a while before we got in touch with all the travelers due to a massive power outage in Rhodes, but finally we were able to contact them by phone or text message, says Anna Hagberg, press officer at Ving.
The travelers have been evacuated to schools, basketball halls or other hotels. As many as possible have been bussed to Ving’s family hotel in the northern part of Rhodes, where they have been given food, mattresses and accommodated in conference rooms.
Ving has also canceled all flights to the areas of Kyosai, Lardos and Lindos on Rhodes that were due to take off on Sunday. Affected travelers will receive a full refund.
– We are following the development of events closely and will during the day be in contact with local authorities and others on site and will share information when it is available, says Anna Hagberg.
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