A British tourist visiting the island where TV doctor Michael Mosley was found dead, said he received no warnings about staying safe on the island despite the tragic incident earlier this month.
Harvey McIntosh, from Plymouth, took a day trip to the island of Symi, while on holiday on the island of Rhodes, but received no warning about the hot weather or to stay near the town.
The 27-year-old knew about the incident with Mr Moseley, and knew to stay safe, but was not ‘explicitly warned’ about the dangers.
He said: “We had heard of the stories in the news but were not explicitly warned of any current danger, but we were simply walking around the main town.
“The temperature was about 32 degrees. And the heat was quite stifling as there was no or very little breeze. However, it was no hotter than Rhodes which we had come from.
“The centre of town was very busy as there were many people day tripping from Rhodes.”
Harvey and his friends, Elizabeth Wilson, 28, and Helen Horner, 29, were on a three hour boat trip to the island so did not stray beyond the town in the hot weather.
Harvey added: “We definitely would not go for a day hike in this weather.”
Following Mr Mosley’s death, numerous other tourists have gone missing during the heatwave on the Greek islands. This month, a Dutch tourist and an American tourist have been found dead on Greek islands, while another American and two French tourists are still missing.
In total, four tourists have died.
Mr Mosley went missing on Wednesday, June 5 after going on a short walk from Agios Nikolaos beach and taking the wrong route. A frantic search was launched to find the TV doctor and author.
Sadly, the 67-year-old was found dead on Sunday, June 9, just metres from a resort, after he is believed to have collapsed. A postmortem concluded he died of natural causes at around 4pm on the Wednesday, having set out in 37C weather just three hours earlier.
The temperature in Symi is currently between 29C and 32C, and a level three alert and an excessive heat warning has been issued across Greece. In Athens, authorities have been handing out bottles of water to tourists to keep them cool.
An urgent warning has been issued to anyone travelling to the country, as attractions have also been closed in Athens. The Acropolis closed to visitors after reports of people fainting in the heat while waiting in line.
Greek state TV meteorologist Panos Giannopoulos told the Independent this is the earliest reported heatwave in the country: “In the 20th century we never had a heatwave before June 19. We have had several in the 21st century, but none before June 15.”
Rhodes and Symi haven’t even experienced the highest temperatures, as Chania, a city on the northwest coast of Crete recorded a temperature of 44.5C last Thursday.