At least 60 people are thought to have died and 100 others injured as wildfires swept through a series of holiday resorts in Greece.
The deadliest blazes to hit the country in more than a decade, burning near Athens, have left towns and forests charred, while sending hundreds fleeing to beaches for safety.
Greece has called for international help through the European Union amid the growing disaster, as authorities deployed the country's entire fleet of water-dropping planes and helicopters to give tourists time to escape.
The Greek Red Cross said on Tuesday morning it had found the bodies of 26 people at a pair of villas in the village of Mati, a discovery that would more than doubled the initial death toll.
The mayor of the fire-hit town of Rafina, Evangelos Bournous, told Skai TV on Tuesday 60 people had lost their lives so far during the blazes.
“The number of dead is rising,” he said. “It has already exceeded 60.”
The fire in Mati, around 18 miles east of Athens, is by far the country's worst since flames devastated the southern Peloponnese peninsula in August 2007, killing dozens.
“Mati doesn't even exist as a settlement anymore,” one woman told Greece's Skai TV. “I saw corpses, burned-out cars. I feel lucky to be alive.”
Mati is in the Rafina region, which is a popular retreat with local tourists, particularly pensioners and children at holiday camps.
Hundreds of people scrambled to the sea to be evacuated by navy vessels, yachts and fishing boats, as the blaze closed in.
I saw corpses, burned-out cars. I feel lucky to be alive
Of those able to escape the various fires, more than 100 have been injured, 69 of which have been hospitalised, 11 in a serious condition.
“We are dealing with something completely asymmetric,” Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras said, returning to the country after cutting short a visit to Bosnia. “It's a difficult night for Greece.”
Athens has issued an urgent appeal for help to tackle several fires that are still raging out of control, destroying property and disrupting major transport links.
Authorities said they would be making use of an unmanned drone from the United States on Tuesday to monitor and track any suspicious activity.
Mr Tsipras and Greek officials have expressed misgivings at the fact that several major fires broke out at the same time,
Wildfires are not uncommon in Greece and a relatively dry winter helped create current tinder-box conditions. It was not immediately clear what ignited the fires.
In a blaze earlier on Monday, Greek authorities urged residents of a coastal region west of Athens to abandon their homes as a wildfire took hold, closing one of Greece's busiest motorways, halting train links and sending plumes of smoke over the capital.
Showers that passed over Athens on Monday missed the two biggest fires currently raging, one in Rafina and another at Kineta, 35 miles to the west of the city.
Heavy rain is forecast across southern Greece on Wednesday.
Additional reporting by agencies
