Tourists in Greece keep disappearing and turning up dead. Is extreme heat the reason?

Tourists just keep disappearing in Greece.

At least half a dozen holidaymakers have been reported dead or missing over the past week.

The development comes as the nation is experiencing a deadly heatwave.

But what happened? And could extreme heat be the reason for the disappearances and deaths?

Let’s take a closer look

What happened?

Authorities are frantically searching for two French women on the island of Sikinos and a US policeman on Amorgos.

CNN reported that the women, aged 73 and 64, went missing during a walk.

The outlet quoted Petros Vasilakis, head of the Southern Aegean Police press office, as saying that the search is on, but police do not know where they were walking or their ultimate destination.

Vasilakis said one of the women sent an SOS to the guest house she was staying in.

Ilias Gavanas, who owns the guest house where the woman was staying, told The Independent he received a message from her saying “I am fall.”

“We warn them not to go out in the heat, to always inform us where they are, to not wander off alone,” Gavanas said. “It was 40 degrees.”

As per CBS, Sikinos, is a relatively out-of-the-way island in the Aegean Sea.

It has less than 400 residents.

Vassilis Marakis, the mayor of Sikinos, told The Guardian the search was ‘relentless.’

“We’ve been out all morning searching,” Marakis said. “Volunteers have arrived from Santorini, firefighters, the police, a specially trained dog have all been looking, but the terrain is rocky and full of ravines. The effort has been huge, but the area where they disappeared is difficult and, sadly, we still haven’t found them.”

Albert Calibet, the 59-year-old US policeman, has been missing on Amorgos since 11 June.

As per CBS News, Calibet hails from California’s Hermosa Beach.

He is a retired Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy.

Vasilakis said Calibet was vacationing on the island by himself.

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

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

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

“There are two search operations in progress on other islands. Police, firemen and volunteers have been deployed assisted by a drone and a rescue dog," Vasilakis said.

CBS News quoted a state department spokesperson as saying that it was aware of the reports of Calibet’s disappearance.

The spokesperson said the department would “work closely with local authorities as they carry out their search efforts.”

“The Greek missing persons alert program has issued a notice concerning this case,” the state department spokesperson added.

“We’re sick to our stomachs, knowing he’s out there somewhere,” Calibet’s girlfriend, Debbie Leshane, told KABC.

Leshane told The New York Post she was ‘disgusted’ by the Greek authorities’ approach.

“I’m totally disgusted with the way we’ve been treated. Albert has been a first responder since he was 25 years old. Everybody deserves to be searched for. But he really, honestly deserves it. We actually literally had splinters going through our shoes into our feet. It’s ridiculous, it’s the seventh day and we’re beyond panic,” Leshane said.

K-9 units have been brought to Amorgos to help in the search for Calibet, ABC News reported.

A 55-year-old American was found dead on the Greek island of Mathraki on Monday.

ABC News reported that the victim was identified as 55-year-old Toby Sheets.

Ioannis Aivatidis, the coroner in Corfu, told the outlet that Sheets died of drowning

Sheets, who was from New York, was reported missing on Thursday.

He was last seen alive Tuesday at a cafe in the company of two female tourists who have since left the island.

According to Athens News Agency, he was in Mathraki for a holiday with a Greek-American friend.

Another tourist found Sheets in the sea near the old port of Mathraki and informed the police, AFP reported.

As per The Independent, Mathraki, is a tiny, heavily wooded island west of Corfu.

Just 100 live across its 3.9-square-kilometers.

A 74-year-old Dutch tourist was also found dead on the island of Samos on Saturday.

CNN reported that the tourist’s body was discovered by a fire department drone in a ravine.

The body was face down around 300 meters from where the tourist was seen nearly a week ago.

Days before that, the body of British TV presenter Michael Mosley was discovered on the island of Symi – close to the Turkish coast.

The body was found after a four-day search operation by aircraft, drones and boats.

Mosley had taken a walk alone in high temperatures before he disappeared on 5 June.

A coroner determined that Mosley died shortly after going for a hike over difficult, rocky terrain.

Konstantia Dimoglidou, a spokesperson for the Greek police, told the BBC that an autopsy found no trauma on his body that could have caused his death.

That same day, two hikers were found dead on Crete.

Is the heatwave to blame?

It seems so.

The incidents come as temperatures soared above 40 degrees Celsius in Greece earlier this month, just as the holiday season began across Greece’s remote beaches, ancient sites and mountain trails.

The early heatwave has coincided with a spate of disappearances and deaths of tourists across the Mediterranean country, highlighting the dangers of heat exposure.

Marakis, the mayor of Sikinos, told The Guardian the day the two French women went missing was ‘abnormally hot.’

“It was extremely hot on Friday, the day they went missing,” Marakis said. “We had heard about such incidents happening on other islands and now it’s happened here. Yesterday, we even had a coastguard boat patrolling our island’s coast. I won’t hide that I am very worried.”

Vasilakis told CNN Calibet went missing in 40 degree weather.

“There is a common pattern - they all went for a hike amid high temperatures,” Petros Vassilakis, the police spokesman for the Southern Aegean, told Reuters.

Experts say the effects of extreme heat on the brain cannot be underestimated.

“The brain, for me, is the key to it all,” Damian Bailey, a physiology and biochemistry professor at the University of South Wales, told CNN.

He called the brain, which regulates the body’s temperature, its “master switch.”

Bailey said extreme heat can drain the body’s fluids and halt blood flow to the brain.

Kim Meidenbauer, a neuroscientist at Washington State University, told CNN that extreme heat can stop the brain from functioning properly.

Activities that we take for granted such as thinking, reasoning and remembering can get “thrown out of whack,” she added.

“No one is immune to the health effects of heat,” Jose Guillermo Cedeño Laurent, a research author and an assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health added. “Our brain is an exquisitely sensitive organ,” he said.

“You make wrong decisions and it can cost you your life.”

The Independent that locals are growing frustrated with tourists underestimating the heat.

“There is a sense of frustration among locals [at British tourists] but also they feel very sorry, very sad. They do not want [tourists’ deaths] to happen – it is also bad for them as a tourist destination,” a documentary filmmaker living in Greece told the newspaper.

“We saw a couple [of tourists] walking a trail in 41C without hats,” local Dimitris Katatzis  was quoted as saying. “It defies logic.”

With inputs from agencies