Dutch tourist found dead, two Americans and two French tourists missing in Greece

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A missing Dutch tourist was found dead on the eastern Greek island of Samos early Saturday morning, local media reported. This is the latest in a series of cases of tourists dying or disappearing on Greek islands. Some, if not all, had set out on hiking trips in sweltering heat.

In addition, two Americans and two French tourists were recently reported missing.

Dr. Michael Mosley, a well-known British television presenter and author, was found dead on the island of Symi last Sunday. A coroner concluded that he had died the previous Wednesday, shortly after embarking on a hike through difficult, rocky terrain.

Like Symi, Samos is located very close to the Turkish coast.

The body of the 74-year-old Dutch tourist was found by a fire service drone, lying face down in a ravine about 300 meters from where he was last seen on Sunday, struggling to walk in the scorching heat.

Temperatures across Greece were more than 10 degrees Celsius lower on Saturday than on Thursday, when they peaked at almost 45 degrees Celsius. They are expected to rise again from Sunday, although not to heatwave levels.

Authorities were still searching for four people who had been reported missing in recent days.

On Friday, two French tourists were reported missing on Sikinos, a relatively remote Cycladic island in the Aegean Sea with fewer than 400 permanent residents.

The two women, aged 73 and 64, had left their respective hotels to meet.

A 70-year-old American tourist was reported missing on Thursday on the small island of Mathraki in northwestern Greece by his host, a Greek-American friend. The tourist was last seen on Tuesday in a cafe with two female tourists who have since left the island.

When the friend returned home on Thursday, he found that the front door was open, the lights and air conditioning were on, and that both the friend and his ID and travel documents were missing.

Mathraki has 100 inhabitants and is a 3.9 square kilometer, densely forested island west of the more famous island of Corfu.

There is no police station or coast guard on Mathraki, so the Corfu authorities were called in to assist in the search. However, strong winds prevented police and firefighters from reaching the island until Saturday afternoon.

On Thursday, search teams were already searching the waters around the island, but took a break on Friday due to bad weather.

On the island of Amorgos, authorities were still searching for a 59-year-old tourist who had been reported missing since Tuesday, when he went on a solo hike in the heat. US media identified the missing tourist as retired Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Albert Calibet of Hermosa Beach, California.

Amorgos, the easternmost of the Cyclades islands, is a rocky island of 122 square kilometers with a population of less than 2,000. A few years ago, the island recorded a record number of visitors of over 100,000.

Popi Despotidi, the island’s deputy mayor for tourism, told CNN: “It is unlikely that he got lost as he has been coming here for 10 years and has walked all over Amorgos.”

Calibet retired from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in 2018.

Robin Leon, a friend of the Calibet family, told NBC News: “He knows this path, he knows this island.”

“The mayor knows him, every cafe knows him, the people on the island know Albert. They love him,” Leon added.

The municipality of Amorgos wrote on Facebook that the 59-year-old had followed the path from the Asphontylite region towards the village of Katapola. When he disappeared, he was wearing Bermuda shorts and a dark shirt.

Calibet’s sister-in-law Sandrine Cutwright told NBC News that “every minute, every hour that goes by, it gets sadder.”

Some media reports have pointed out that tourists need to be made aware of the dangers of hiking in extreme heat.