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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There’s a major tournament for football fans to look out for this summer, with the Women’s World Cup set to take place. It’s the first time the tournament has been co-hosted, with both Australia and New Zealand set to play host to games in the biggest event in the women’s game. Things kick off on July 20 and the final will eventually take place on August 20. Sarina Wiegman’s England side are looking to add the World Cup to their collection after victory in the Euros in 2022. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter However, they’ll be missing captain Leah Williamson as well as Beth Mead and Fran Kirby through injury. There are numerous places showing the games in London, but you’ll have to get up early to watch the games as they kick off in the morning for viewers in the UK. The list of England group games is below: Saturday July 22 - England vs Haiti, 10.30am Friday July 28 - England vs Denmark, 9.30am Tuesday August 1 - China vs England, 12pm These are some of the best places in London to catch the Lionesses in action. Boxpark (Shoreditch, Croydon and Wembley) Boxpark is always good for a party when the football is on, and all three venues in London are showing World Cup games. The Wembley and Croydon venues can hold up to 1,200 capacity, and you can guarantee the place will be rocking for England matches. It’s not just the live screenings either, as there’ll also be “fun-filled games, live performances, and a range of family-friendly activities” at the Croydon and Wembley locations as part of the family-friendly screenings. Boxpark, various locations, boxpark.co.uk Belushi's With chains in London Bridge, Hammersmith, Camden, Greenwich and Shepherd's Bush, Belushis offer plenty of dependable venues to watch the tournament from. If you pre-book, there’s also the chance to make use of their Prime Time Lager multi-buy offer of a five-bottle bucket for £25.00 across Belushi’s London locations. Various locations, belushis.com Four Thieves Battersea pub Four Thieves are going all in for the World Cup this year, showing all the England matches and offering brunch to fans watching the Lionesses’s first game of the tournament. Brunch tickets include a meal from the menu as well as bottomless mimosas and Bloody Marys until 2pm, with all the action shown on the venue’s HD projector screen. Stick around after for bingo, music and party games, too. 51, Lavender Gardens, Battersea, SW11 1DJ, the-four-thieves.com TOCA Social With the games starting early in the day, TOCA Social at the O2 is offering people the chance to work remotely while watching the games. A £20 ticket gets you unlimited tea and coffee and either breakfast or lunch, as well as plenty of plugs to power up your laptop. The ‘interactive football and dining experience’ could be a great place to check out the action this summer. Peninsula Square, SE10 0DX, sevenrooms.com Bar Kick One of the best sports bars in East London is opening its doors for the Women’s World Cup. If you fancy making a day of it afterwards, the venue also has interactive dart boards and foosball tables to hire out.Shoreditch High St, E1 6JE, barkicklondon.com Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The astrological moment we’ve all been dreading — horoscope-obsessed or not — is here yet again: Mercury Retrograde. With it comes a plethora of miscommunications, technological mishaps, travel delays, and general frustrations — oh joy. “Mercury Retrograde can bring curveballs and crunchiness,” Sarah Faith Gottesdiener, author of The Moon Book and host of Moonbeaming Podcast, tells Refinery29. At least, that’s one way to look at it. This astrological phenomenon allows us to put things into perspective. While Mercury Retrograde gets a bad rap, it can also be a time to slow down and take stock of current projects and goals and even use the time to reflect and readjust priorities. It’s also a time to expect the unexpected, and it never hurts to be prepared — whether that’s with a spiritual-filled candle, a detailed planner, or a portable charger. While the retrograde ends on September 15, there’s a post-retrograde shadow period that lasts until September 30. So there’s plenty of time to add any of the following products to cart — and we’d recommend you do, you never know what Mercury Retrograde could have in store for you.

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