Gale-fanned wildfires raged through holiday resorts near Greece's capital on Tuesday, killing at least 60 people and leaving over 150 wounded, 11 seriously. This is the deadliest fire season to hit Greece in over a decade, authorities said.
Greece sought international help through the European Union as the fires on either side of Athens left lines of cars torched, charred farms and forests, and sent hundreds of people racing to beaches to be evacuated by navy vessels, yachts and fishing boats.
The Greek government delcared three days of mourning.
"The country is going through an unspeakable tragedy," Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said in a televised address. "Today, Greece is mourning and we are declaring three days of national mourning in the memory of those who perished," he said.
Winds reached 50 mph as authorities deployed the country's entire fleet of water-dropping planes and helicopters to give people time to escape. Military drones remained in the air in the high winds to help officials direct more than 600 firefighters on the ground.
"We were unlucky. The wind changed and it came at us with such force that it razed the coastal area in minutes," said Evangelos Bournous, mayor of the port town of Rafina, a sleepy mainland port that serves Greek holiday islands.
People scrambled to the nearby beaches as the blaze closed in close to the shore. Hundreds were rescued by passing boats but others found their way blocked by smoke and flames.
The Greek Coastguard said its boats and other vessels rescued 696 people who had fled to beaches. Boats plucked another 19 people from the sea.
"We are dealing with something completely asymmetric," Tsipras said after cutting short a visit to Bosnia.
Greece issued an urgent appeal for help to tackle fires that raged out of control in several places across the country, destroying homes and disrupting major transport links.
Cyprus and Spain offered assistance after Greece said it needed air and land assets from European Union partners.
The inferno dominated front pages in the country on Tuesday, with headlines such as "killer fire" and "hell" and newspapers reporting fears the death toll would climb.
Tsipras and Greek officials have expressed misgivings at the fact that several major fires broke out at the same time.
Wildfires are not uncommon in Greece, and a relatively dry winter helped create current tinder-box conditions. It was not immediately clear what ignited the fires.
A hillside of homes was gutted by flames east of Athens. A mayor said he saw at least 100 homes and 200 vehicles burning.
Earlier on Monday, Greek authorities urged residents of a coastal region west of Athens to abandon their homes as another wildfire burned ferociously, closing one of Greece's busiest motorways, halting train links and sending plumes of smoke over the capital.
The main Athens-Corinth motorway, one of two road routes to the Peloponnese peninsula, was closed and train services were canceled.
