Three dead in Greece wildfires as firefighters battle the flames

Three people became the first known fatalities of wildfires that have been raging on the Greek islands for a week, and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis warned of tough days ahead as the blazes destroyed homes and forced tourist evacuations

Lefteris Laoudikos, whose family owns a small hotel in the Rhodes seaside resort village of Kiotari, one of the epicentres of the fire over the weekend, said its 200 guests - mainly from Germany, Britain and Poland - evacuated in rental cars.Rescuers operate at the site where a firefighting plane crashed after a water drop as a wildfire burns in Karystos on the island of Evia, Greece, July 25, 2023.

John Hatzis, who owns three unaffected hotels in northern Rhodes, said the island needed to welcome back tourists. Rhodes, one of Greece's biggest islands, is among its top summer destinations, attracting about 1.5 million foreign tourists in the summer months. After a blaze in the seaside town of Mati, east of Athens, in 2018 killed 104 people, Greece has taken a more proactive approach towards evacuations. But critics say it has not improved its ability to put out fires that are common in summer, though more intense in this year's heatwave.

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