By Athena Papakosta

For two 24 hours now, the foreign media have been recording minute by minute all the dramatic developments from the huge fire front in Rhodes. The fire on the island of the Knights remains a central topic of the reports with all publications describing the barrage of evacuations underlining that such an operation to remove citizens to safe places has never been experienced in our country.

“The Greek government reports that the evacuation operation from the huge fire in Rhodes is the largest ever carried out with 19,000 people evacuated from the affected areas”, emphasized the British Sky News network, which played the first topic of the battle with the flames in Rhodes, explaining, at the same time, that “16,000 people have been evacuated by land and 3,000 by sea”.

At the same time, the American CNN network explained how the rescues took place, saying in the hourly reports that “some tourists and residents were rescued by the Greek army and the Coast Guard, but also by private boats, while others left either in buses, vans or on foot.

From the extensive reports, the testimonies of the British tourists who chose Rhodes for their summer holidays this summer are not absent. Most express their gratitude for the people of Rhodes who, despite the dramatic times they live, help them by giving them food and water for free, with some even opening their homes to host them and others taking them with their cars to safe places.

“All the locals helped us all get into small boats (…) They took all the children, women and children first. In the boats they returned for the men. (…) Shops gave us water and food for free (…) Restaurants gave our children food and bananas because someone was diabetic. We have received very good care from the Greeks,” said a visitor from the United Kingdom in a video on the Social Networking Media, Tik Tok.

“We started running. It was hard to breathe and then a resident of the island picked us up and drove us to the beach in his car. The army was waiting for us there,” stressed Catherine from the United Kingdom, speaking to SkyNews.

And in the foreign news networks, the journalists describe the sky darkened by the smoke which, as reported by the BBC, looks like it too has been engulfed in flames while broadcasting the dramatic efforts of the firefighters and volunteers, underlining that the fire on the island has been raging for almost a week.

The Associated Press news agency spoke early last Saturday about a triangle of fire and all the reports emphasize that the extreme heat wave that our country is facing in combination with the drought and the very strong winds blowing in Rhodes make the situation increasingly difficult.

“The Greek Fire Service that due to the weather conditions, due to the heat, the ever-increasing temperature, the humidity and the winds, expects the situation to evolve for the worse”, the correspondent of the British BBC, Azadeh Moshiri, said from Athens, adding that “we must not forget that Greece is faced with fires. Firefighters in Greece are faced with approximately 65 to 75 fires every day.”

And Rhodes continues the battle with the flames for the seventh day.