{"id":309264,"date":"2025-08-09T10:22:30","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T02:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=309264"},"modified":"2025-08-09T10:22:30","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T02:22:30","slug":"greece-two-vietnamese-tourists-die-at-sea-amid-gale-force-winds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=309264","title":{"rendered":"Greece: Two Vietnamese tourists die at sea amid gale-force winds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\u00a0ATHENS, Aug 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Two Vietnamese tourists died at sea in Greece on Friday, the coastguard said, as gale-force winds confined many ferries to port, disrupting travel for tens of thousands of summer travellers, and also sparked fires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A coastguard spokeswoman said a man and woman had died at the Sarakiniko beach on the tourist island of Milos in the Cyclades, as firefighters battled blazes near Athens and the island of Cephalonia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The man and woman were found unconscious in the sea and were taken to the local health centre,” the spokeswoman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“They were Vietnamese tourists on a cruise ship group. The woman fell in the water and the man apparently tried to save her,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The civil protection ministry said wind gusts would reach 88 kilometres an hour, especially in the southern Aegean and the Sea of Crete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over 200 firefighters backed by three aircraft and five helicopters were battling a fire in Keratea, east of Athens, Costas Tsigkas, head of the association of Greek firefighter officers, told ERT state television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It’s a difficult fire…(owing) to wind gusts,” he said, adding that a number of local communities had been evacuated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cephalonia fire was earlier placed under control, local officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

National weather service EMY said the phenomenon would weaken after midnight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The coastguard said most ferries were unable to depart on schedule from Piraeus and other Athens ports, especially to the Cyclades or Dodecanese islands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several planned ferries were cancelled while others were postponed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maritime connections with the Saronic islands near Athens including Aegina, Hydra, Poros and Spetses and the Ionian Sea are unaffected, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Athens National Observatory in a statement also warned there was a “very high potential for wind-driven forest fires”, particularly in the east and south of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mayor of Athens had shut down the National Garden on Thursday after a tree fell in one of the capital’s busiest high streets, narrowly missing shoppers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strong winds are common in Greece at this time of year. — NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0ATHENS, Aug 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Two Vietnamese tourists died at sea in Greece on Friday, the coastguard said, as gale-force winds confined many ferries to port, disrupting travel for tens of thousands of summer travellers, and also sparked fires. A coastguard spokeswoman said a man and woman had died at the Sarakiniko beach on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":309265,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[215,209],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309264"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=309264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":309266,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309264\/revisions\/309266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/309265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=309264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=309264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=309264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}