Celia Derbyshire, from Cheshire, was on holiday in the resort village of Kiotari, in the south of Rhodes, with her two daughters, Mimi, 12, and Olivia, 15.

The three of them had been heading out to stay at a five-star resort for a week, on a holiday which cost more than £3,000 and booked through holiday provider Tui.

She arrived at her hotel on Friday, and awoke the next day to plumes of black and yellow smoke coming closer to the hotel, and with her daughters fled to the waterfront with hundreds of others.

At the beach, she said people were collected by a makeshift fleet of tourist and fishing boats to bring them out.

She said at that point, the smoke “had gone from a yellow plume in the morning to very acrid black”.

“They were screaming ‘women and children first’, [but] that didn’t happen, that didn’t happen at all.”

Celia and her two daughters could not access an evacuation point, and booked their own alternative transport home via the island of Kos.

They arrived back in Manchester on Monday morning, which Celia said was a huge relief for her daughters.