More than 3,000 people were rescued from beaches, and another 16,000 were taken to safety on land as flames intensified in the southeastern part of the island on Saturday.
The wildfires, which began six days ago, have prompted the biggest evacuation from a blaze in the history of Greece, the Athens government said yesterday.
The British ambassador to Greece said the UK Foreign Office had sent a rapid deployment team to help stranded UK tourists, as travel companies cancelled holidays to Rhodes.
Local agencies have struggled to get the wildfires under control amid a prolonged heatwave across southern Europe, which officials warned could trigger further evacuations in the coming days.
The travel firm Jet2 on Sunday cancelled package holidays to Rhodes for at least a week, while easyJet and Tui aborted holidays scheduled to depart up to Tuesday. Thomas Cook announced it had cancelled all holidays to Kiotari and Lardos, the areas of the island most at risk, until 31 July.
However, Tui was criticised for flying holidaymakers out as late as Saturday night, when many hotels had been evacuated due to the worsening situation.
Holidaymakers described scenes of panic and chaos on beaches where thousands of people waited to be rescued. One spoke of seeing children falling into the sea from evacuation boats as ash fell from the sky. Another described people abandoning their belongings on beaches as they clambered on to rescue vessels.
Ian Murison, from London, likened the evacuation to "the end of the world" as the sea turned black with soot and people rushed to boats. He said he and his family had walked almost four miles in scorching heat towards Gennadi beach, where they were met by a scene of chaos.
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