There is “no chance” the search for British TV doctor Michael Mosley on the Greek island of Symi will be stopped until he is found, the island’s mayor has said, describing the search as a “race against time”.
Mosley, 67, has been missing since walking off the beach with his wife on Wednesday afternoon, leaving his mobile phone behind. A search and rescue operation involving divers, helicopters and drones is now in its fourth day.
Searchers have resumed the search in a four-mile (6.5-kilometer) radius around the mountainous area of the island, but search organizer Manolis Tsimpoucas said Mosley has not yet been found.
Mayor Eleftherios Papakardoukas questioned how Mosley could have survived the extreme heat that hit the island on the day he went missing, with temperatures reaching over 40 degrees Celsius. Symi and neighbouring islands were under an yellow weather warning for high temperatures, and the mayor said search dogs were only able to work for an hour on Saturday morning because of the heat.
Mr Papakardoukas said the area Mosley is believed to have passed was “difficult to navigate”, “rocky” and “abundant” in snakes.
Mosley’s four children arrived on Symi on Saturday to help with the search, joining his wife, Dr. Claire Bailey, and friends, the mayor said. Mosley and Bailey arrived on the island on Tuesday.
CCTV footage of Mosley was released on Friday, showing him holding an umbrella to block the sun outside a restaurant in the village of Pedi, providing the first concrete evidence that he had made it to the village. The image was taken about 20 minutes after he left St. Nicholas Beach at about 1:30 pm local time.
While Bailey was searching for her husband in woodland above the village of Pedi, searchers believe Mosley was sailing in a secluded area on the other side of the bay, Mr Papakardoukas said, citing other CCTV evidence. After the search was extended out to sea, police have instructed taxi boats to raise the alarm if they see anything suspicious.
Security camera footage from a home on the edge of Pedi’s marina showed Mosley on the mountain road leading to the island’s port town at about 2pm on Wednesday. A senior police official leading the investigation said the development “in some ways just deepens the mystery. Now we have to ask where he went from there, whether he took another, unexpected route.” [to the port town] Did he slip and fall? We still haven’t figured it out.”
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A rescuer told the PA news agency that it would take even a healthy young person three hours to walk from Pedi to the port, a route that Mosley is thought to have taken after reaching the village. “It’s not an easy path to follow and if you take the wrong turn you’ll get lost. We don’t know where we are. It’s a race against time,” the rescuer said, describing a less used route that heads inland rather than along the coast.
The mayor’s daughter, Mika Papakaloduca, said several of the island’s 300 full-time residents were searching for Mosley. “It’s too small an island to get lost on. It’s a mystery to us. We’re all worried and looking for him.”
