'My family got separated in the wildfires - I feared my disabled mum would die'
A mum has told how she was separated from her partner, kids and brother in the Greek wildfires and feared her disabled mum would die.
Charlotte Harvey, from Abergavenny, south Wales, was on a 10-day TUI holiday with her family at the Lindos Imperial Resort & Spa on the island of Rhodes when the wildfires broke out.
She claimed that the initial advice at the hotel was for them to stay put in the hotel despite the devastating fires ripping through the dry vegetation. "The fire was burning on the mountain and we could see the smoke," she recalled. "But everyone assured us it was fine, it was under control. By around Thursday (July 20) our hotel was covered in smoke. It was really low, there was ash everywhere and we were finding it hard to breathe.
"We were trusting the people and they were assuring us it was fine, and it was far away. The smoke was getting quite thick so my children and partner had to come back from the evening entertainment early, because they couldn't breathe; we would wake up in the morning and there was ash on our towels."
Then on the day they were due to checkout, Charlotte and her 62-year-old mum Andrea came out from a spa treatment and were told they needed to leave "right now." Charlotte said: "The people from the spa were like: 'The fire is coming.' It was right upon us - we literally left the spa in our swimming suits and went straight to the beach. My mum's disabled so we had her mobility scooter with us."
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People were forced to evacuate (Charlotte Harvey)
Charlotte and her mother Andrea, pictured before they had to evacuate (Charlotte Harvey)When Charlotte got to the beach, she couldn't even see her hotel because it was "completely engulfed" in smoke. She described the terrifying scenes of people shouting to move over to the next beach with "thousands" swarming the roads. Andrea couldn't get her scooter on to the beach so was forced to abandon it.
At this point, Charlotte told how she and her mum were separated from the rest of their group - including Charlotte's partner Daniel, her 19-year-old brother and her children (aged 15, 12 and 8), reported WalesOnline. They were moving faster than Andrea, who has emphysema and COPD of the lungs, so they agreed to go ahead to safety while Charlotte helped her mother.
"We had no scooter, no buses, no taxis, " said Charlotte. "Everyone was just walking - it was mostly civilians, no reps from the hotel, just walking in the same direction hoping to get to safety. This Greek woman was running down the beach crying and screaming and begging people just to drop the luggage and run. I was like: 'I cannot run, how can my mother run? She's disabled, she has bad legs.'
"The woman came to us crying and was saying: 'I'll get you to safety, I will not leave you there.' She carried my mum all the way up to a bus where there were men jumping on, leaving women and children crying on the road. We'd walked for miles and miles, this was the only bus we had seen. They closed the doors and drove off."
The sky was thick with smoke and ash (Charlotte Harvey)
Charlotte and her mother during the evacuation (Charlotte Harvey)The situation was "chaos, carnage," said Charlotte. "There was no structure, no organisation. You were out there fending for yourself. The people behind were the stragglers that couldn't physically get anywhere - kids in strollers on the beach, moving along very slowly. Obviously it was very hot, you couldn't breathe, and our eyes were bright red and watering. Our feet were black, we had ash in our hair and our clothes."
Charlotte says the Greek woman tried to convince the bus driver to let Charlotte and Andrea on, but didn't manage to. Instead, the woman reassured them - and managed to flag down the first police car Charlotte had seen since leaving the hotel. The police car gave them a lift to another hotel, a short drive further north.
Here, Charlotte spotted her partner, brother and three daughters who were in a "terrible state", she said. There was room in the police car for Charlotte's eight-year-old youngest daughter Marni-Mai, so Charlotte and Andrea brought her with them. After waiting at the hotel for buses that didn't arrive, the pair ended up at a local school. "There were little babies in nappies, teething, just crying," Charlotte said. "Old people, vulnerable people. It was just heartbreaking to see."
Soon, local people were telling everyone to evacuate immediately - and over the next few hours, the family had to walk for miles in the pitch darkness. "It was horrendous," said Charlotte. "If it wasn't for a German couple that refused to leave us, and helped my mother on one arm and carried her, I don't want to think where we would be.
Charlotte said that initially they were told not to evacuate their hotel (Charlotte Harvey)
Charlotte said it became difficult to breathe due to the ash (Charlotte Harvey)"My mum had blisters all over her feet, I had to wrap them in tissue from someone's bag. She couldn't breathe, she went grey in her face... it's really hard to describe, it's horrible."
After hours of making slow progress and being told to get further away from the fire, Charlotte, Andrea and Marni-Mai reached a beach where they were told a boat was there to pick up women and children. "I dragged my mother all the way down the beach," said Charlotte.
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"When we got to the boat there were so many people pushing and shoving and squashing everybody that the people on the boat were screaming and crying. It had been so long, and we hadn't slept, and I thought my mum was gonna die. I know it sounds terrible but I pushed my way on. I needed to get her on there; I just felt like we couldn't get any further, couldn't walk any further."
The boat took them to another small cruise boat, where they docked for several hours in the sea, "watching the island burning." Not long after, they docked and got a bus to the city of Rhodes.
By this point, Andrea was "very ill," going grey in the face and starting to panic. For some reason, Charlotte's phone calls to her partner hadn't been going through - but her sister in the UK was able to act as a go-between, and confirmed to Charlotte that her partner, brother and two eldest kids were safe.
"We were relieved because we knew they were okay," said Charlotte, "but we felt helpless - we wanted to be together. And my mother's medication was in a bag that my partner had on the other side of the island."
Charlotte told how her family became separated in the evacuation (Charlotte Harvey)
Charlotte's mother Andrea and daughter Marni-Mai sleeping on a local cruise boat (Charlotte Harvey)Once they reached another school, Charlotte and Andrea were able to pay for a taxi to the airport. From there, they were sent to a hotel overnight and had to arrange their own travel back to the airport on Monday, July 24, when they finally managed to get on a flight to Manchester, arriving home in Abergavenny later that evening.
"It's been awful, absolutely awful," Charlotte said. "We just felt like we were in a nightmare. We're all safe now. My mum has been to the doctor's and she's okay, she's just got exhaustion and dehydrated and she's going to have a scan on her knee. I was very ill as soon as I landed in Manchester, they think I might have either some kind of poisoning or a bug from the water we drank on the way."
Charlotte says she's now "scared" for the people still trying to get out of Rhodes - including those who helped tourists get to safer places on the island. "Those poor Greek people need help," she said. "The people from Rhodes need help - they've put themselves out there, and we're all evacuated from their island but it's still burning. They need more help, these fires should've been put out quicker."
Charlotte said the TUI reps at the hotel near the airport were "amazing" but from the time she evacuated the hotel, through the night and the next day, she didn't see anyone from the company - just local people.
A spokesperson for TUI reportedly said: "We understand how distressing and difficult it's been for those who had to leave their hotels and curtail their holidays due to the wildfires in Rhodes. Our teams have worked round the clock to offer support and we brought in many additional reps to help assist as soon as the situation escalated.
"They've done their utmost in challenging and difficult situations, collaborating with the local authorities who managed the immediate evacuation. We relocated impacted customers in new hotels as soon as we could and have brought hundreds of people home. Many more will be travelling back to the UK on flights today and our teams will be in touch with everyone who impacted on their return."
The latest travel advice from the UK Government is to contact your travel operator or accommodation provider before travelling to check the area isn't currently impacted by the wildfires. You can read the rest of the official advice here.
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