When British couple Fred and Suzanne Cogdell saw 50ft flames speeding through the forest towards their hotel, they knew they had to run for their lives.
They made it to the beach where they hid behind rocks, but had to watch agonisingly as badly burned children waited to be rescued.
As they sheltered near the harbour with hundreds of other terrified people – local residents and tourists – they saw burned children and at least one victim with very bad injuries.
Fred and Suzanne Cogdell had only been in the coastal resort of Mati a few hours when they were forced to flee for their lives from wildfires raging near the Greek town
They were joined by hundreds of others fleeing from Mati, the town worst affected by the devastating fires which has claimed 81 lives across Greece.
‘When we left the room we just grabbed a bag with our passports. Down by the sea there were children who did not have any shirts so we gave them T-shits to put on,’ Fred, a tailor, said.
‘It was scary as when we looked back to the hotel we could not see it anymore.
‘The smoke was so thick and you could see flames shooting all around it. The flames were coming so fast they were like a steam train. You could hear gas canisters exploding and the crackling sound of wood burning.
‘Trees were just going up in flames like a matchstick. We were quite worried but it helped being close to the water.’
As thousands of others fled their homes or seaside resorts, or huddled inside and prayed, whether they survived the devastating wildfires seemed largely up to chance.
Pictures show the scale of the inferno which swept through the Rafina area overnight, fanned by strong winds and high temperatures
Dramatic aerial pictures show how fire devastated the village of Mati, leaving only scorched ground where houses once stood
Paradise lost: Pictures show the charred remains of a family summer camp in Mati with an eating and barbecue area completely destroyed by fire
Some made it to the beach where they hid behind rocks and crouched in the water trying not to inhale smoke as towns burned around them and raced through pine forests in minutes.
Others had nowhere to run and shut themselves inside hoping it fires would pass them by. Some survived unscathed, but dozens more died in their incinerated homes.
Desperate men, women, and children ran in all directions – some reaching safety but many becoming surrounded by walls of flame they could not escape – others trapped in endless traffic jams.
Some of those who made it to the ocean were forced to swim so far away from last to escape the suffocating black smoke that they were washed out to sea and drowned.
Kiriaki Alexiadou and her grandson dashed to their car and fled to safety. Their neighbours, who set out towards the sanctuary of the sea on foot, were burned alive.
Hope was already gone for Irish newlywed Brian O’Callaghan-Westropp, whose body was found on Wednesday after he got separated from his wife Zoe Holohan as they ran for their lives
Greek father Yiannis Philipopoulos appealed for help locating his missing twin daughters, who he says he spotted alive in TV news footage (pictured) showing people getting off a fishing boat that had rescued them as they fled
Irish newlyweds Brian O’Callaghan-Westropp and Zoe Holohan got separated as they ran for their lives on their honeymoon near Mati, a seaside town 25 miles east of Athens that has been the worst affected.
Ms Holohan survived and was recovering in hospital from burns to her head and hands, but her new husband’s body was found on Wednesday.
Nikos Giannopoulos stood with his wife and two children outside the destroyed home of his 88-year-old mother, waiting for news as rescuers searched each room. They found her charred body in the bathroom.
‘She died helpless, an 88-year-old woman. I lost my nearby home in the fire, and my mother’s was burned too,’ he said, his voice cracking with emotion. ‘So many people died that it took the rescuers three days to find her.’
Meanwhile as the smoke billowed over his property, Theodoros Christopoulos had seconds to decide whether to hunker down or flee towards the beach.
‘There were five of us. I said ‘get back in the house’. We closed the shutters – they’re aluminium – and I just thought whatever happens happens,’ he said. ‘The road was already blocked by cars trying to get out of Mati.’
The nine-year-old girls, Sophia (left) and Vasiliki (right), are still missing feared dead after another father said the girls in the video were actually his
Mr Philipopoulos (right) was interviewed on Greek TV talking about his search for his missing daughters
Desperate families have released pictures of missing loved-ones as rescuers sift through the charred remains of houses looking for survivors
Mr Christopoulos was among the lucky ones; his home was largely undamaged and all five people who hid inside survived.
‘There was a great panic because the whole street was blocked by cars,’ he said. ‘Shouting, hysteria, they could see the fire was coming with the wind. It already smelled a lot, the sky was black overhead and in no time at all the fire was here.’
Many in Mati sought refuge along the coves of the beach bordering the resort, where the detritus of the hasty escapes could be seen on Wednesday.
A sandal, a cardigan, a child’s toy abandoned among the pebbles were all that remained from what local Sabi Kissov called ‘a night of hell’.
The caretaker of a small house near the shore, he helped his employer, a 73-year-old cancer sufferer, down to the beach to wait out the inferno.
‘There was at least 300 of us. The worst thing was the smoke, it hurt to breathe,’ he said.
Those huddled next to the sea were rescued by emergency workers in boats as the flames lit up the night sky. Others weren’t as fortunate.
Flames continued to rage as firefighters battled to quell the wildfire at the village of Kineta, near Athens. The blazing fire has so far claimed scores of lives, including a mother and son from Poland
The mother and son from Poland were among the dead when the vessel flipped in the water amid rough seas after picking up guests from a hotel in Mati as forest fires tore through the resort, 25 miles from Athens.
In the same village, a number of holidaymakers and locals were burned alive, some of them trapped in their cars in traffic jams, as hundreds tried to flee the raging inferno, which also devoured more than a thousand homes
Aftermath: A man stands next to his burned house and car as he speaks in Mati, east of Athens. Rescuers are sifting through the remains of buildings and cars today
While many houses were burned to the ground, there were areas where properties remained untouched highlighting the unpredictability of the rampaging blaze
Just a few steps from Mr Kissov’s home, the charred bodies of 26 people were found huddled together in the sarcophagus of a villa, the steep garden cliff face of the property apparently preventing their escape.
They were ‘perhaps families, friends or strangers, entwined in a last attempt to protect themselves as they tried to reach the sea,’ rescuers said.
‘We found everything when we got back, even the car, the cockerel and the dog,’ Mr Kissov said as he watered the plants in his garden, a few yards from still-smouldering properties.
‘You can’t explain it, why this house, why not that one… it all happened so fast,’ said Fani Antonini, fixing a toppled pot plant next to the smoking remains of what was once the family home.
‘At least I can still take a shower and offer you a drink, the water still works!’
One street over, Christos, 48, inspected the damage to his house. A few years ago, he covered the walls with a fire-retardant substance and the home was virtually unscathed, but the house of his elderly neighbour was ruined.
Ilias Psinakis, mayor of the fire-ravaged Marathon area, said many residents only had a few minutes to save themselves.
He described losing his own home. ‘We could smell something burning. Then everything was gone in minutes. The wind came, then moved away, then came back again,’ he said.
‘My house was lost but nothing happened to five or six cars parked outside. One had a broken mirror. That’s to give you an idea of what happened.’
150 firefighters were on the site with 74 firetrucks, and were being supported with firefighting planes and helicopter. Despite this strong winds and parched conditions have made for perfect conditions for the wildfire
Scores are dead after a series of wildfires in Greece. The resort of Mati, 25 miles from Athens, has been left devastated and rows of cars were destroyed as fierce fires swept through the area in a matter of minutes
An aerial view shows the devastation caused by the fire which raged through forests outside the village of Mati before consuming hundreds of houses
Images taken inside some of the burnt out buildings show the power of the inferno as it swept through the community in a matter of minutes
Desperate father Yiannis Philipopoulos searched for his missing nine-year-old twin daughters after spotting them alive on television on a rescue boat – only to discover it wasn’t them.
He made a televised appeal for help tracking down Sophia and Vasiliki who vanished in the chaos of the wildfires raging throughout the country.
The girls were on holiday in Rafina with their grandparents 74-year-old Philip, and Sofia, 61, who were also unaccounted for, and he has been searching ever since.
He went to a morgue, hospitals and police stations and even gave a DNA sample during his desperate search, but thought he finally spotted them wrapped in blankets getting off a rescue boat.
However, in a dramatic twist, another man came forward to say the youngsters in the video were in fact his daughters, leaving Sophia and Vasiliki still missing and feared dead.
Dashing to the water was the only way to escape for most villagers – but many perished behind a wall of flames and toxic smoke
The fires broke out either side of Athens with Mati and Rafina the worst hit areas. The death toll is expected to climb today
Some 187 people have been hospitalised, with 82 still being treated on Tuesday evening, including almost a dozen children, most of whom were in a ‘serious condition’, the fire services said.
Flags across Greece, including those at parliament, public hospitals and the ancient Acropolis in Athens, flew at half-staff after President Alexis Tsipras declared three days of national mourning.
Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos U.S. surveillance aircraft assisted the firefighting effort and were gathering footage to try to determine whether Monday’s fire was deliberately lit.
‘This had such tremendous force, powered by winds up to 110 kilometers per hours.. It jumped over a road as wide as a highway. When you have conditions like this, nothing can stop it,’ he said.