“With Greece gripped by unusually high temperatures, there are growing fears that foreign visitors are not aware or properly informed of the dangers of over-exerting themselves in the scorching heat,” writes the British Guardian in a report published in its front issues.

In the report, entitled “Visitors to Greece appear poorly informed about heatwave risk, rescuers warn” and signed by Elena Smith, the newspaper notes that three research and rescue operations have been launched in the last week for tourists who went missing during walks on remote islands, including one for popular TV presenter Michael Mosley, who was found dead on the island of Symi.

Mosley set out amid very high temperatures for a walk that turned fatal when he took the wrong route and ended up making what his wife said was an “incredible climb” through rugged hills. Despite intensive searches, involving patrol boats, divers, helicopters, firefighters, police officers, drones and a specially trained dog, it took five days to locate his body. The warming is believed to have played a key role in his death.

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“Stray from the path”

In recent days, emergency services were also called to two other remote islands, Samos and Amorgos, to search for an elderly Dutchman and an American citizen who went missing on hiking trails.

59-year-old Eric Calibet, a retired police officer from Los Angeles and a regular visitor to Amorgos, was last seen Tuesday hiking alone on the Cycladic island. He had set off at 7am for a four-hour hike on a day when the temperature was scheduled to exceed 37 degrees Celsius. Until late Thursday, almost 48 hours after the friend he was staying with alerted police to his non-return, the 59-year-old was still missing. His last known contact is believed to have been a text message he sent from his cell phone to his sister.

A search operation in Samos – which involved a rescue team, four drones, a scout dog flown from Athens and a helicopter from the EU’s Frontex border agency – also failed to find the 74-year-old Dutch national, who had similarly embarked on a five-hour hike when he disappeared.

Dimitris Katatzis, head of the Samos rescue team, said missions often became more difficult because tourists, often unaware of the dangers, “go off the road” to see sites and then get lost. “Yesterday we saw a couple [foreigners] walking on a path in 41 degrees Celsius without hats,” he told local media. “It defies logic.”

Greece at the forefront of climate emergency

Greece, the British newspaper reports, is on the front line of the climate emergency, while recording increasingly high temperatures, with a record 48 degrees Celsius recorded in the summer of 2023.

This year, record high temperatures are already being recorded in June. Several schools were closed, the Ministry of Culture was forced to close Acropolis and other archaeological sites to visitors. Red Cross volunteers have handed out thousands of free water bottles and Athens City Hall has set up cooling stations. In Chania, Crete, the mercury reached 44.5 degrees Celsius on Thursday.

Requests for better trail maintenance and signage

The extreme heat and the dangers it poses are raising calls for better trail maintenance and signage.

“I would like to see more safety cameras and lighting of these monopaths, said Symi Mayor Eleftherios Papakalodoukas . “If there is one lesson to be learned from the Death tragedy at Mosley, it is that these trails need to be better cared for so that people don’t get lost.” The BBC presenter did not have a mobile phone with him when he set out on his walk.

Local officials also called for better information for tourists. A councillor in Chios said walking clubs in remote areas that have the expertise and ability to improve trails should be better supported financially and technologically to ensure trails are less dangerous.