THE BODIES of four hikers who went missing on Christmas day have been found buried by an avalanche.
Three men and a woman were found embracing each other, dead and covered in snow near the summit of a 6,500ft mountain, local reports said.
The dead are an experienced climber, a teacher from a village in Trikala and two friends, Greek state broadcaster ERT reported.
The group were identified in Greek media outlets as Thanasis Koloutouros, Theodora Kaplani, Konstantinos Patikas and Giorgos Domalis.
The climbers had set off for a festive walk in the Vardousia Mountains in central Greece on Christmas morning.
The weather was clear as the group left the village of Athanasios Diakos, reportedly planning to summit Korakas.
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But the path they had chosen was particularly steep, and large amounts of fresh snow had fallen in the area.
Authorities said conditions rapidly declined once the hike began, due to the altitude and the area’s terrain.
The four were killed instantly by an avalanche, crushed by falling snow close to the peak of Korakas.
Rescuers found the group seeming to hug each other, suggesting that they had little or no time to react to the avalanche.
The alarm was raised by a friend of some of the hikers when the group didn’t come back from their climb, the Hellenic Fire Service told the BBC.
Vasilis Vathrakogiannis, a spokesperson for the Hellenic Fire Service, said: “Weather conditions were extremely difficult, with low temperatures and poor visibility.”
He added that search and rescue drones and choppers struggled due to poor weather conditions.
One body was successfully recovered by helicopter, with efforts continuing to recover the three other corpses.
Haris Asariotakis, head of the Hellenic Rescue Team operation, said the location made the search particularly difficult.
He said: “It is about three hours from the village of Athanasios Diakos, at an altitude of 2,000m.
If the helicopter is unable to reach the area, we will descend on foot together with firefighters and mountain guides.”
The president of the Fire Officers’ Association, Kostas Tsigas, told ERT that severe weather could have confused the climbers.
He said: “Four of our fellow citizens set out to climb in the Vardousia region. According to local accounts and initial findings from the investigation, it appears that they lost their way.
“Visibility was very low, there was a lot of snow and possibly a blizzard affected the route they took.
Wind may have driven a large volume of snow to the point where they were eventually located.”
It follows a huge avalanche which struck the Daunscharte pass in Austria last month.
Shocking footage showed avalanche sweeping away skiers as it barrelled down the mountain.
In April, a 27-year-old Brit was killed as an avalanche struck at French ski resort Val Thorens.