A mother who says she experienced “hell on earth” was among the British tourists forced to flee Rhodes this weekend as fierce wildfires continue to rip through the Greek holiday island. Officials on the island, which sits southwest of Turkey in the Aegean Sea, launched Greece’s biggest-ever evacuation operation as the blaze tore through vast swathes of land, threatening resorts popular with holidaymakers. Tourists were forced to shelter in schools, sports stadiums, airports and alternative hotels as firefighters desperately fought to contain the flames, which officials fear may worsen on Monday as wind speeds more than double on the island. As Britons rushed to book seats on packed flights home after the evacuations, holiday firms including Jet2, the UK’s biggest tour operator, announced they would be cancelling services to Rhodes and would be sending empty planes to bring stranded tourists home. Airline easyJet said they would operate repatriation flights to bring home stranded British holidaymakers. Two rescue flights are scheduled on Monday and a third on Tuesday, they said. Greek authorities also told people in some parts of Corfu to evacuate due to further wildfires on Sunday evening. Around 19,000 people in total are reported to have been evacuated from Rhodes, the largest of Greece’s Dodecanese islands, which has a local population of about 115,000. Becky Mulligan, a 29-year-old training manager from Leicester, was staying at the Princess Sun Hotel in the Kiotari resort on Rhodes’s southeast coast when she, her five-year-old daughter, and sister, 20, were forced to quickly pack their bags and flee as the sky turned “orange”. “Smoke started coming up against the window of the hotel so we decided to run,” she told The Independent. “There were helicopters hovering above making the whole building shake. “We ended up legging it down a dirt track as the smoke came up around our legs. I thought I was going to die. It was like hell on earth.” Ms Mulligan and her family were forced to seek refuge on the beach as they waited for coaches to come and pick them up, which she described as the “most scary point”. She said hundreds of people were waiting to be evacuated with grown adults “basically trampling on children to get to the buses”. The trio was then taken to Gennadi Grande resort and from there bussed to another location, where they were forced to spend Saturday night on the floor of a hotel room. On Sunday morning they managed to escape safely, sharing a taxi with another family to the airport where their flight back to the UK was due to depart after 11pm. Dan Jones, a sports teacher from Torquay, Devon, said he had to climb onto a fishing trawler with his sons on Saturday night, describing it as “the scariest moment in my entire life”, adding: “What brave boys.” Ian Wakefield told Times Radio he spent the night in a school playground in Faliraki after being evacuated from his hotel in Pefki. He said: “It didn’t really feel real – being in imminent danger of being burned to death. Between midnight and around 5am this morning we were going through an evacuation which was pretty chaotic. “There were a lot of upset people and children who were understandably quite hysterical. It was all very confusing – the instructions from the hotel manager were unclear. “You had to make your own choice in the end. I’ve had to leave quite a lot of luggage in the hotel.” As fire crews struggled to contain the blazes and thick black smoke continued billowing into the sky, British holiday firms began cancelling flights to Rhodes, although some planes touched down on the island on Saturday night and early on Sunday morning despite the emergency. Jet2 Holidays cancelled all flights to the island until 30 July and said it would send empty planes to bring stranded Britons home, while Tui said it would cancel all flights and holidays until Tuesday. Thomas Cook later announced it had cancelled all holidays to Kiotari and Lardos – the areas of the island most at risk – until 31 July and would be in touch with customers to arrange “swift refunds”. It has also offered full refunds to customers due to depart for other parts of the island on Sunday and Monday who wish to cancel their trip. But some holidaymakers suggested that operators should have cancelled flights to the island sooner. Lowri Jones from Crymych, Pembrokeshire, Wales, described scenes of “chaos” at Rhodes Airport when she arrived there on Saturday night. The mother of one, 52, travelled to the Greek island with her thirteen year-old-daughter for a holiday. “It was absolute pandemonium at the airport, with long queues of people trying to find out what coach they were,” she told The Independent. “We booked with Tui and there has been very little communication from them. “We had been due to stay at the Atlantica Dreams hotel in Gennadi but were driven – without warning – to a completely different resort in the north of the island due to the wildfires.” She added: “Me and my daughter ended up spending the night on the floor with other people in a room with no air conditioning in sweltering heat – it was horrible. “To be honest, I don’t think we should have even been there in the first place. The flight was delayed because the pilot had to do a risk assessment to see if it was safe to land because of the fires. “Tui should have told us it wasn’t safe and given us a refund – at least that way I could have made a decision about booking somewhere else. Now I’m stranded in Rhodes and having to look at booking flights home.” A spokesperson for Tui said it is continuing to monitor the wildfires and appreciated the “distressing and difficult” situation for its customers. Anyone who remains in Rhodes is urged “follow the advice of the local authorities who are managing tourist movements in impacted areas,” they said. Britain’s ambassador to Greece said the Foreign Office had sent a “rapid deployment team” to help UK tourists who were among thousands forced to flee for their lives on Saturday as the wildfire spread. Read More ‘It was hell on earth’: British tourists describe fleeing Rhodes wildfire inferno Rhodes wildfire: How are British travel companies responding to the emergency? Corfu evacuations begin as fleeing Rhodes tourists spend second night in airport Holidays and flights to Greek island ravaged by fire cancelled UK airlines still selling tickets to Rhodes despite wildfire inferno Greece: Smoke turns Rhodes sky grey and hazy as wildfires continue to rage

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A woman who says skin cancer treatment has left her looking like Freddy Krueger is urging others to respect the sun. Melissa Lewis, 48, has been living with skin cancer for more than a decade. She has annual treatment which gives her skin a pockmarked look, which she has compared to that of Krueger, a fictional killer. Melissa, from Sydney, Australia, hopes the yearly procedure will keep her cancer at bay. But she wants to speak out to warn others of the harm sun exposure can do, before it’s too late. The mum-of-four, a former nurse, said: “When they said I have Bowen’s disease I thought that was it. “When I looked it up I was like, ‘Oh my god, I am never going to be free’. It is something I have to keep on top of. “I have treatment once a year. I hate it, it is really stressful as I know my skin will hurt. “I will have up to 14 days looking like Freddy Krueger, I can’t go out in public. “I look at my own kids when I have had the treatment and they find it hard to look at me. “I tell them that this is why you put sunscreen on, this is why you are careful.” Melissa first spotted a basal cell carcinoma - a sign of skin cancer - on her leg in 2011. She has since found them on her forehead, nose, chest and back and has lost count of how many have been removed. But in 2018, Melissa discovered what looked like a group of freckles lumped together in front of her ear. Thinking it was best to get it checked out, she paid a visit to her dermatologist. Melissa was then referred her to the Melanoma Institute in June 2018 - which confirmed she had a melanoma. “I was very lucky to have caught it when I did,” she said. “It did make me think that, ‘This is it’. The dread I experienced when I heard that word was really intense. “Having four kids thinking I am not going to be there with them was so overwhelming. “You automatically fast forward to the worst-case scenario.” A month after her diagnosis, Melissa had her melanoma removed. And, two months after her surgery, a biopsy revealed Melissa had Bowen’s disease - an early form of skin cancer. Melissa said: “I am never going to be free from this. “Basically if I don’t have my cancers removed, it can become a more serious invasive cancer.” Since she was diagnosed with Bowen’s syndrome, Melissa undergoes a yearly none-surgical cancer treatment - Photodynamic therapy. Photodynamic therapy is a treatment that involves light-sensitive medicine and a light source to destroy abnormal cells. Melissa said: “I hate it, I get really anxious before I know I am coming up for treatment. “It is really stressful as I know how much it hurts. “My future will be to repeat expensive Photodynamic therapy with CO2 laser every year and always six monthly full skin checks. “It will be the only way to prevent further surgery and keep non-melanoma skin cancers from becoming invasive cancer.” Read More Four bowel cancer symptoms that can show two years before diagnosis Mum put on life support after infected finger led to ‘devastating’ diagnosis 6 mouth cancer symptoms everyone should know Mother left ‘looking like Freddy Krueger’ reveals first skin cancer warning sign Mum put on life support after infected finger led to ‘devastating’ diagnosis 6 mouth cancer symptoms everyone should know

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