Two Poles are among the victims of deadly forest fires in Greece, Wojciech Flera, the Polish consul in Athens, has said.

The Poles, a woman and her son, were with eight other people on a boat which sank as they tried to evacuate a hotel that was at risk of being engulfed by flames, said Janusz Śmigielski of the Grecos travel agency.

Some 50 people have died in the flames, according to a Greek government spokesman.

More than 160 people, including 16 children, have been injured.

About a thousand homes and hundreds of cars have been destroyed.

The flames erupted amid a heat wave, with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius in Greece over the past few days.

A state of emergency has been declared in Greece and officials have appealed to other European Union countries for help. (vb/pk)

Source: IAR