Greek rescue teams have found the bodies of mountaineers who were buried and went missing in an avalanche on Christmas Day, and are in the process of retrieving the bodies from the mountain.
Foreign news agencies reported on 27 Dec 2025 GMT+7 that authorities discovered the bodies of four mountaineers who went missing after being buried alive in an avalanche on Mount Vardousia in central Greece on Christmas Day.
The Greek government’s ERT news agency reported that the bodies of three men and one woman were found on Friday evening following a large-scale search operation in the mountainous region of Fokida.
Greek firefighting officials, who also serve as rescue units, found the victims partially covered by snow on a steep, hard-to-reach slope near Korakas Peak, at an elevation of approximately 2,000 meters (6,561 feet). Rescue teams stated that the hiking group was swept away by the avalanche.
Authorities said the group began their ascent during favorable weather conditions, but the weather rapidly deteriorated due to the altitude and terrain characteristics of the area.
Vasilis Vatrakogianis, spokesperson for the Greek National Fire Service, told BBC News that the friends of the three men reported them missing after they failed to return as expected.
"The weather conditions were extremely difficult, with very low temperatures and poor visibility," he said, adding that these factors prevented drones and helicopters from detecting anything.
Vatrakogianis added that later, the ground team of firefighters found the bodies of three men and one woman, confirmed to be friends of the reporting party, who had not originally been expected to join the climb.
Officials stated they are conducting a challenging recovery operation. One body has already been successfully airlifted by helicopter, while efforts continue to move the remaining three bodies to a nearby plateau to facilitate their extraction by winch.
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Source:bbc