private boats have joined the coastguard, picking people up from beaches on the east of the island. the fires have been burning for five days now. the country s deputy fire chief says the blazes in rhodes are the most difficult greece is facing. jet2 airlines have cancelled fiveflights from the uk to rhodes schedulled for sunday. they are flying the empty planes to the island in order to bring customers schedulled to leave today back to the uk as planned. azadeh moshiri has more from athens. they came for blue skies but met orange haze. tourists have fled their resorts as fires engulfed parts of rhodes. we were told by the police that we had to evacuate the building because the, erm, the air was just unbreathable. it had turned bright orange and black above our heads from the hotel. so we were evacuating immediately. so we re one of the very lucky ones.
and we could see that the fire was chasing us down, there was nobody there, there was no one telling us what to do. so, this boat took us to lardos beach, they left us at lardos beach, there was no taxis, there was no phone signals, and again, i was very lucky that the guy at the apartments there knew somebody who worked at my hotel, they then sent somebody from their staff, our hotel, and the greek people, i have to say, have been unbelievable. the british embassy and tui and jet2 have been appalling. the amount of families that. so, andrea, no communication really in terms of what you should do or what the dangers might have been? nothing. no, we ve not had one. not one text. nobody is answering phones, we have sent messenger messages, you can t get through to anybody, and there are coaches driving round and people are trying to scramble on them, banging on the coaches, honestly, it was like the end of the world, it was horrific. we met one family who had
the fires have been burning for five days now. the country s deputy fire chief says the blazes in rhodes are the most difficult greece is facing. jet2 airlines have cancelled five flights from the uk to rhodes scheduled for sunday. they are flying the empty planes to the island in order to bring customers scheduled to leave today back to the uk as planned. and our reporter, azadeh moshiri, joins us now from athens. i know that you have been speaking to the authorities. what have they been telling you? they have said that these fires have spread, that they are expecting to have to evacuate more people today, in three villages in the east, including a popular tourist destination, and they said they think it might turn into 1200 people that will be evacuated today. the problem is as they have said, even though it can dissipate in the