“The wind has calmed down, no new fires are visible” – this is the information we received on Tuesday on the RMF FM Hotline from our listener, Ms. Katarzyna, who is stuck on the island of Kos in Greece. Information can be found on social media that tourists are slowly returning to hotels. On Monday evening, we were still receiving information that “Kos is burning” and “the entire town of Kardamena has been evacuated”.
/East News/Gorąca Linia RMF FM /East News
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Monday that this summer “is expected to be particularly dangerous” due to the fires.
“We had an exceptionally difficult June in terms of weather conditions, with high levels of drought and unusually strong winds for this part of the season. We are entering a difficult fire season and it will certainly not be possible to effectively fight the fires without the help of society, especially in terms of prevention,” Mitsotakis told a government meeting.
On Monday, over the Greek island of Kos, where dozens of Poles are currently vacationing, near the town of Kardamena in the southern part of the island, tourists on the beach saw clouds of smoke. Due to the fires, some hotels were evacuated, and people had to leave the town of Kardamena. They spent the night in schools or at airports.
Fire on the Greek island of Kos / RMF FM Hotline
At 2 p.m. it started smoking. We were on the beach in Kos. They kept reassuring us that nothing was happening, that the fire was in the mountains. There were planes and helicopters flying around, extinguishing the fire. About an hour ago, the police arrived at the hotel, ordered all tourists to take only the most necessary things. We were walking around Kos, looking for a coach. They took us to the airport, probably to some school – our listener informed us on the Hotline.
Smoke from fires on the Greek island of Kos RMF FM Hotline
“Kos is burning”. Polish tourists evacuated from Kardamena
As RMF FM listeners tell us, things are much calmer on Tuesday morning.
The wind has calmed down, no new fires can be seen – said Ms. Katarzyna on the Hotline.
There is only one airport on Kos. Tourists were evacuated there and to the conference hall, stadium and church, where the priest, his wife and children were handing out water. Local residents came and brought blankets, apples, pizza, crisps and everything they had. They were incredibly warm – another RMF FM listener informed us.
On social media you can find information that in the town of Antymachia – also on the island of KOS – at around 7:50 a.m. tourists received information regarding the possibility of returning to the hotel.
“The nightmare is over,” report others vacationing in Greece.
“On Monday, a preventive evacuation of 362 of our clients staying in the Kardamena area took place. The clients were evacuated to the town of Antimachia (stadium, school, parking lot at the Mylos windmills), where they were provided with water and sandwiches as well as access to toilets,” Ewa Maruszak from the ITAKA travel agency told PAP on Tuesday.
The on-site evacuation was coordinated by police officers, and travel agency residents were present during the evacuation.
“All of our clients have already returned to their hotels. The evacuation of the hotels was preventive in nature, the hotels were not directly threatened,” Maruszak emphasized.
According to information provided by ITAKA, charter operations to Kos are carried out as scheduled and so far there have been no reasons for the travel agency to cancel departures.
When asked regarding the organization of earlier returns of Poles to the country, Maruszak emphasizes that they are in contact with residents, the contractor, hotels and the Consular Section of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in the Republic of Greece and are monitoring the situation on an ongoing basis.
“We have operational procedures for crisis management in the event of force majeure, which we activate in crisis situations. In destinations, we cooperate with local authorities, diplomatic missions and our representatives. The responsible departments of the company are tasked with developing the logistics of a specific tourist repatriation operation, if necessary, in cooperation with, among others, airlines,” Maruszak said.
