ATHENS, July 25 (CGTN) -- At least 74 people have been killed in the wildfires that have been raging close to Athens since Monday, a Greek fire brigade official said on Tuesday.

At least 187 people, including 23 children, have been injured. The number of missing persons is still unclear.

The figure outpaces the death toll from 2007, one of the worst on record, where about 70 individuals were killed by fires in Greece's southern Peloponnese region.

Officials said the fires broke out in Mati, east of Athens, late on Monday afternoon and were broadly contained by Tuesday afternoon, though it is still burning in some areas, with a risk of becoming reignited by the searing summer heat.

"Greece is going through an unspeakable tragedy," Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said as he appeared on television to declare three days of national mourning.

Emergency crews found the bodies of 26 victims, some of them youngsters, lying close together near the top of a cliff overlooking a beach. They had ended up there after apparently searching for an escape route.

Greece has sought international assistance to cope with the fires near the capital, which have destroyed dozens of homes, burned cars and prompted both tourists and citizens to flee to the beaches east of Athens for rescue by boat.

Late Monday, three charred bodies were discovered underneath a burned out car near the port town of Rafina, one of the worst affected areas, which is about 40km east of Athens.

Two more people died Monday while being taken to hospital, public television Ert said, citing the Greek capital's Ekav emergency service.

Ekav said earlier it had transferred 25 people to the hospital, among whom eight were seriously injured.

The authorities said they were trying to evacuate inhabitants near Rafina using military and port vessels.

Police in the town said they found two Danish tourists out of a group of 10 in a boat at sea off the town and were trying to locate the others.

"The night will be difficult," civil protection chief Yannis Kapakis told Ert, which cancelled its normal programming to cover the fires.

Kapakis said he had told Greek Premier Alexis Tsipras, who cut short a visit to Bosnia to return home, that winds of up to 100km/h were creating "an extreme situation."

In the north of the country, more than 300 firefighters, five aircraft and two helicopters were mobilized to tackle the "extremely difficult" situation, Athens fire chief Achille Tzouvaras said.

The Greek government invoked EU civil protection agreements to seek help from its EU peers, with the country tinder box dry and at risk of more fires.

Video footage showed inhabitants fleeing the fires by car, with several buildings and homes damaged, as the region of Attica – where Athens is situated – declared a state of emergency.

"If I hadn't left, I'd have been burned," a 67-year-old resident said.

Near the town of Marathon, several residents fled to safety along the beach, while some 600 children were evacuated from holiday camps in the area.

Tsipras said that "all emergency forces have been mobilized" to battle fires along at least three fronts.

Emergency services were banking on a drop in the wind but the forecast for the region – which has experienced temperatures topping 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) degrees – suggested conditions would remain challenging into Tuesday.

Smoke from the blazes blotted out the sun over the famed Parthenon temple in Athens, where some ministries closed in the afternoon due to the soaring heat.

"I am really concerned by the parallel outbreak of these fires," Tispras said, with officials raising the possibility they could have been started deliberately by criminals out to ransack abandoned homes.

Fires are a common problem in Greece during the country's searing summers and can be major killers.

Fires in 2007 on the southern island of Evia claimed 77 lives.

Sweden battles 27 fires

Also on Monday, Sweden's civil protection agency MSB said there were 27 active fires across the country, as temperatures were expected to soar as high as 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit) this week.

Other European countries, including France, Italy and Germany, have sent planes, trucks and firefighters to help tackle the blazes as Sweden, where the usual summer temperatures are closer to 23 Celsius degrees, has struggled to contain the crisis.

Some 25,000 hectares of land - an area twice the size of the city of Paris - have already gone up in smoke or continues to burn.

At least four of the fires had not been brought under control, MSB said, and weather conditions were unfavorable.

Sweden is experiencing an unprecedented drought and soaring temperatures, which have reached the highest in a century.

No rain since May

There has been practically no rain in the Nordic country since the beginning of May, aside from a paltry 13 millimeters in mid-June.

The Forestry Bureau said in a statement Monday that the value of the destroyed forests was 900 million kronor (about 110 million US dollars).

Other northern European nations have been struggling to contain forest fires as the temperature shows no sign of dropping.

In Finland's northernmost Lapland Province, fires have ravaged wood and grassland close to the border with Russia.

Norway, which this year experienced its hottest May temperatures on record, has also seen several small fires, and one firefighter was killed on July 15 while trying to contain a blaze.

Fires have raged for five days in Latvia, destroying more than 800 hectares in the Baltic state's western regions.

Meteorologists warned that the high temperatures are persisting and no rain is expected in Latvia for the next two weeks.