by With the school summer holiday season fast approaching, and the much-anticipated “on annual leave” status looming ever closer in the diary, the excitement of a Greek island holiday is reaching a peak: the Azure sea; the bare facades of buildings facing the marina promising ice cold drinks; the beaches and coves call us all that used to rain and cloud.
With its remote spots, hard-to-reach coves and stunning headlands, the Greek islands have it all – with not much hassle to spoil the happiness.
But since the death of the much-loved broadcaster Michael Mosley, who was found on June 9 near the beach of Agia Marina on the island of Symi, five days after he first went on a simple solo walk from the beach, the news has been in the news. full of tragic stories of more holidaymakers – usually Europeans – dying trying to walk in the unusual heat of the islands.
Six more people have died or gone missing on the Greek islands this month, with all cases attributed to risk-taking in the “historical” hot weather.
This week, a 67-year-old German man became the latest casualty, after he went on a canyon walk alone on the island of Crete, where the temperature was 44.5C. A few hours into the walk he called his wife to say he was feeling ill; He was later found dead near a harbor.
Earlier, on June 15, the body of a Dutch man, 74, was found dead in a valley on the eastern island of Samos after he was seen struggling to walk in the heat. A day later, a missing American man was found dead on the island of Mathraki, near Corfu – the third person to lose his life in a week.
Meanwhile, a search is underway for three tourists: two French women, aged 73 and 64, who are missing on Sikinos, and a retired Los Angeles deputy sheriff, Eric Calibet, 59, with dual French citizenship -American, last seen walking. alone on Amorgos.
An Israeli couple in the Vytina area of the Peloponnese peninsula has yet to return.
“This has always been a problem, especially with tourists who come to the islands for the first time,” says Konstantina Dimoglidou, a spokesperson for the Greek police. “What happened was that all the cases happened almost at the same time in a few days because of the heat wave, and most of the other years would be spread over the summer. Rescuers who were searching for Michael Mosley told me that the thermometer at the location where he was found was at 46C at some point.”
In recent weeks, Greece has been hit by two back-to-back heat waves, with temperatures exceeding 40C. Schools were closed and the Ministry of Culture had to close the Acropolis and other archaeological sites to visitors. Red Cross volunteers have handed out thousands of free bottles of water and cooling stations have been set up at Athens town hall. But paths on the islands, due to their wild and uncontrolled nature, remained completely uncontrolled.
Authorities usually issue warnings to local elders to stay indoors and stay hydrated, yet tourists are not issued warnings about the dangers of hiking.
For locals who live on the islands, the recent deaths are tragic but also, they say, sadly avoidable. Mosley’s death has put a spotlight on island trekking training, but lost and often unequipped tourists remain a problem, with their lives in constant danger from Greek island derring-do. Tourists are usually found in time or divert themselves before their energetic minds become tragic – but sometimes they are never found.
The weather in all such cases where tourists get lost is always hot – tourists are often seen on footpaths without hats, much to the annoyance of locals – but this year, say experts and locals, it is the combination of unusual heat and hiking that has created in particular. fatal.
A local on the island of Antiparos, who did not wish to be named, said: “It is usually fine to walk on the islands in June, but this year we have seen an unusual and long heat wave. I believe when Michael Mosley went missing, for example, the rescuers were looking for him in 40 degrees. It’s just uncharacteristically hot.”
The woman, from England, now lives in Athens but goes to Antiparos regularly. She also says that very few tourists realize that many of the islands have their own micro-climate, especially towards the south of Greece.
There is often little shade and no trees. A very long wind on a Greek island can sometimes lead to dangerous decisions: it envelops the heat, luring tourists into thinking that an activity like hiking is safer than it really is.
It is often tempting to walk on the islands because the views are so exceptional and because often the smallest, bravest paths can find the best coves or views. But the local woman warns that these small paths are often confusing and when lost, it can be difficult for a walker to get back on the right path, as was the case with Mosley: “I think that the rescue teams do their best. , but these hikers are often lost in very remote areas, or on donkey paths where there are only monasteries and abandoned farms.
“There is often no phone signal either and the conditions are very difficult to search for someone. I’ve hiked before in June, early in the morning and with a group, but people really shouldn’t hike alone when it’s this hot.”
Another local, who lives in Parga, a coastal town off the Ionian sea on mainland Greece, says: “Of course it was hotter than ever. But I think this is cumulative. We have had so many forest fires in recent years, they have destroyed any vegetation and the islands are more likely to be bone dry and flooded too.
“It’s very dangerous to walk out here in the summer. None of these missing people are Greek. The locals know the dangers, but we don’t really understand why others don’t.
“Of course, it should also be noted that the number of tourists who came to Greece last year was well over 30 million. So although the deaths are tragic they are a tiny number.”
Meteorologist Panos Giannopoulos told the ERT TV channel: “This heat wave will go down in history. In the 20th century, we didn’t have one before June 19.”
This month’s searches are in stark contrast to the attempt, five years ago, to find John Tossell, 78 years old from Bridgend who went missing while on holiday in Zakynthos.
In a case that echoes Michael Mosley until he was chilling, the last confirmed sighting of him was caught on CCTV footage, passing a hotel on his way out of town towards Vassilikos. Greek authorities called off the search after five days, forcing his daughter Katy to launch her own fundraising campaign.
Mr Tossell’s son, Gary, has since said he was disappointed by the rescue team’s efforts at the time: “They went out walking. It was like a walk in the park for them. There was no intensity in their efforts. They said that a team was coming from Athens with dogs and specialists but for some reason it was turned off at the last minute. After five days they stopped completely. They said he must have left the island but he had 10 euros and a bottle of water.”
Katy Tossell raised £7,000 herself, which she used to take the Western Highlands Mountain Rescue team to Zakynthos to continue looking, but they called off the search after seven days and there are still no answers at the family.
On the other hand, the Michael Mosley case attracted the attention of the international media. He was a high-profile television personality in the UK. Could this be why the search was so different from John Tossell’s? Or maybe the Greek authorities had learned a lesson from the too many deaths close to him?
“When I read the story, it’s like a cut and paste of my dad,” Mr Tossell’s son Gary told Sky News after Michael Mosley went missing. “He went for a walk and he just went out of thin air. It’s the same story but a different person.” John Tossell’s family suspects foul play. Although he was 10 years older than Mosley and may have died of natural causes, they still wonder why his body was never found.
In Mosley’s case, the search involved patrol boats, divers, helicopters, firefighters, police, drones and a sniffer dog, but it still took five days before the 67-year-old’s body was found. The search operation in Samos for the 74-year-old Dutch national was also extensive: a rescue team, four drones, a sniffer dog brought from Athens and the helicopter of the EU border agency Frontex. The terrain is the cause of the difficulty.
Dimitris Katatzis, who led that team, described a common hazard that Mosley’s error represented: “walkers looking out of the way”. But is it enough for Greece to send out extensive search teams multiple times when the worst has already happened? Mosley died within hours of his disappearance, on the first day he went missing.
‘These paths must be looked at’
“I would like to see more CCTV cameras and lighting of these corridors,” said the mayor of Symi, Eleftherios Papakalodoukas. “If there is a lesson to be learned from the tragedy [of Mosley’s death], that is, these paths must be looked after better so that people do not get lost.” It would not be difficult or expensive to install a series of arrows, for example, to ensure that walkers stay in the right direction.
One town councilor on the island of Chios also called for a better framework to support that tourism. Local walking clubs that specialize in regular trips to remote areas have a unique insight into the nature of the trails. If the clubs were better supported, through funding and technology, their input could be used for the good of the island, from educating gung-ho tourists to protecting them, high-profile tragedies that avoid, and stimulate the island’s economy at the same time. visitors.
And there is advice for walkers too: check the temperatures and carry a phone. It was revealed that the 74-year-old Dutch hiker’s phone was switched off and yet Kalaitzis, a member of a local chapter of the Hellenic Rescue Team, described the route he is believed to have taken in the south-west. Samos as “merciful”. Kalaitzis, according to the man’s wife, said he only had a small bottle of water as he walked out. Mosley was carrying an umbrella but did not have a phone with him. Of the two women who went missing in Sikinos, the island’s mayor, Vassilis Marakis, told Greek television that one of them had her phone switched off and the other did not have it with her.
All these recent cases suggest that intrepid tourists on the wrong side of 50 have an excellent message: you’re never too old to take some travel advice because as the tragic Greek deaths have shown, it’s not always your mother and father know best.
