Thousands of tourists had to be evacuated from three hotels that were later damaged by the flames on the southeastern coast of the island of Rhodes on Saturday as a huge wildfire that has been burning on the island since Tuesday morning continued to spread swiftly.

The Ministry of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection also told residents in the villages of Lardos, Pylonas, Asklipios and Kiotari to evacuate towards Gennadi.

Earlier, firefighters managed to convince nuns in the Ypseni Monastery who refused to abandon it to leave.

A large part of the island was without electricity as part of a series of planned power outages by the public power utility PPC which shut down the local plant in the south for safety reasons.

Source: Ekathimerini.com