Foreign office minister Andrew Mitchell has confirmed there are between 7,000 and 10,000 Britons currently in Rhodes.

Asked why the government is not telling holidaymakers to avoid the island, he stressed that only 10 per cent of Rhodes is affected by the fires.

“And therefore it is the tourist companies and the holiday experts who are best placed to give guidance on whether or not a family or individuals’ holidays are going to be ruined by these events,” he told Times Radio.

But, asked if he would go on holiday there at the moment, he said: “I think I probably wouldn’t. But the point is that if I had booked a holiday I would take advice and would also take advice from the tour operator.”

Asked about the government’s response, Mr Mitchell said: “We deployed immediately a rapid forward team of six experts from the British Foreign Office, as well as four Red Cross operators as well.”

And he said the British teams were being “sympathetic and supportive” of those without the necessary documentation, who may have lost passports or other files fleeing the fires.

British tourist Kevin Evans was evacuated twice on Saturday with his wife and three young children – first from Kiotari to Gennadi, then as the fire approached the island’s capital in the northeast, he told the PA news agency.

“There were lots of people in Gennadi sent from the hotels – many in just swimsuits having been told to leave everything in the hotel,” he told PA.

“As night fell, we could see the fire on the top of the hills in Kiotari. They said all the hotels were on fire.”

Rhodes travel agent Stelios Kotiadis told the Associated Press the evacuation was hasty.

“There was panic. … The authorities were overwhelmed,” he said.

But, he said, the abandoned hotels “are in much better condition than reported in social media. … They will be ready to reopen very soon if Civil Protection gives the go-ahead”.

Mr Kotiadis said he and other travel agents sent buses to the island’s southeast to pick up evacuated tourists.

They had to go the long way around because the road running down Rhodes’ eastern side was blocked in places.

“There were 80 to 90 people cramming into 50-seater buses,” he said.

He added that 90% of the evacuated tourists are from European countries.

Travel firm Tui has said holidaymakers have returned to the UK from Rhodes on “three dedicated flights”.

It said in a statement: “We’re now working hard to get everybody home safely, with our first passengers returning to the UK on three dedicated flights overnight and plans in place to get everyone affected back as soon as possible.

“We appreciate how distressing and difficult it’s been for those who have been evacuated and ask that they continue to follow the advice of the local authorities and keep in touch with the Tui reps who are present in all evacuation centres. Our teams will be contacting customers with any updates as soon as they can.

“We have cancelled all outbound flights to Rhodes up to and including Tuesday, and passengers due to travel on these flights will receive full refunds.

“Passengers due to travel on Wednesday will be offered a fee-free amend to another holiday or the option to cancel for a full refund.

“We are still operating flights to bring those customers currently on holiday elsewhere in Rhodes home as planned.

“The safety and wellbeing of our customers and teams remains our top priority.”

This satellite image shows the area affected by wildfires in Rhodes, Greece on Sunday.

An eruption of wildfires has forced the “biggest evacuation in Greek history” as around 2,500 have been evacuated from Corfu.

In Rhodes, some holidaymakers said they walked for miles in scorching heat to reach safety. The fires left blackened trees and dead animals lay in the road near burnt-out cars.

Many tourists spent the night on the airport floor, waiting for repatriation flights. “It was quite a bit of a struggle on the beach with the smoke,” said John Hope, a tourist from Manchester, England.

Tour operators Jet2, TUI and Corendon cancelled flights leaving for Rhodes. Britain’s easyJet said on Sunday it was operating two repatriation flights on Monday from Rhodes to London’s Gatwick airport in addition to the nine flights already operating between the island and Gatwick.

The airline said it will add another repatriation flight on Tuesday.

Ryanair said on Sunday its flights to and from Rhodes were operating as normal. Its Chief Financial Officer Neil Sorahan said the airline was monitoring the situation on Monday.

“We have a lot of customers there who want to get home. We’re not going to leave them behind so we’ll travel back in and out,” he said.

“It’s not necessary at this period in time (to put on more flights), we’re letting people book onto earlier flights.”

Tourists fleeing wildfires in Rhodes were forced to sleep on the floor for a second night in a row as they waited for evacuation flights.

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.

Wildfires burned across Greece on Monday, forcing people to be evacuated from a beach on the island of Corfu while tourists crowded an airport on Rhodes after thousands fled hotels and resorts at the weekend.

Fires burning since Wednesday on Rhodes forced the evacuation of 19,000 people over the weekend as an inferno reached coastal resorts on the island’s southeastern coast.

Rhodes and Corfu are among Greece’s top destinations for tourists mainly from Britain and Germany.

“We are in the seventh day of the fire and it hasn’t been controlled,” Rhodes Deputy Mayor Konstantinos Taraslias told state broadcaster ERT.

Around 2,500 individuals have been successfully evacuated from Corfu, the Greek fire service has said, as evacuations continue in three islands.

Yannis Artopios, a spokesperson for the fire department, said some 2,466 people have been evacuated overnight, according to AFP news agency.

No houses or hotels have been impacted evacuated so far, he said.

Sea evacuations have begun from Greece’s Corfu to move individuals fleeing wildfires out of the island.

Around 59 people were evacuated from Nissaki beach on the northwest coast, the Greek Coast Guard has said.

The evacuation was carried out using six coast guard vessels and nine private vessels.