2023-08-04 05:45:15
Even at their worst, the Greek gods never unleashed an eruption on Rhodes. Unlike its cousin Santorini, the Aegean island is not volcanic. The landscape of desolation left by ten days of fire between July 18 and 28, however, evokes an immense lava flow which would have descended the mountain to the sea. An intense fire which did not cause human victims but ravaged nearly 18,000 hectares of forest and vegetation (about 15% of the island’s surface area), burned 50,000 olive trees, trapped thousands of animals, including 2,500 domestic animals, destroyed or damaged around fifty buildings and drove the emergency evacuation and mondovision of 20,000 tourists in the south-east of the island.
Not all have deserted. On a completely charred beach, at the entrance to the seaside resort of Kiotari, a Norwegian couple is installed in small armchairs at the edge of the water, their backs to the emerald sea, facing the burning sun, a can in their hands . The parasol is essentially used to keep the Mythos, the local beer, cool in the cooler. “It’s very sad, it was a paradise here last week”, says Monica Stenberg, crimson from head to toe but faithful to Rhodes for thirty years. In swimming trunks in the middle of the rubble, his companion, Johansen, shows the extent of the damage to a friend by video call.
The vegetation bordering the creek is charred. The showers, gratings, parasols, beach mattresses were devoured by the flames. The very chic beach bar (350 covers) with its gazebo and large wooden terrace is nothing more than a pile of rubble. Two employees came to inspect what could be salvaged. Verdict: ” Nothing “. On the phone, the boss, who calls himself Manolis so as not to give his name, rails against the“incompetence” authorities and firefighters who have not “didn’t even try” to save his bar. He does not know if he will rebuild it. Owner of other tourist establishments, he had opened it two months ago but obviously without benefiting from all the authorizations.
The Angelaki restaurant burned after a forest fire on the island of Rhodes, Greece, on July 31, 2023. LOUIZA VRADI FOR “THE WORLD” Dimitris Chatzifotis, 27, owner of the Angelaki restaurant, sees the fire damage in his establishment , in Rhodes, Greece, on July 31, 2023. LOUIZA VRADI FOR “THE WORLD”
When the fire truck passed, Dimitris Chatzifotis got in the way and screamed. The vehicle did not stop, his restaurant burned down. The Angelaki Taverna was an institution in the region: for thirty-two years, people had come there to taste the famous dish of goat’s cheese braised in the oven accompanied by a sauce with tomatoes from the garden. The vegetable garden is strewn with dead chickens. His mother raised about sixty of them to prepare creamy omelettes for customers. They all perished. Of the nine rabbits (“for children, not for eating”, explains Mr. Chatzifotis), only Arapis, black as the trunks of charred fig trees, survived. He eats leftover watermelon.
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