Forest fires raged uncontrolled in several parts of Greece on Monday, destroying homes, disrupting major transport links and leaving at least three people dead. .

Greek authorities urged residents of a coastal region near Athens to abandon their homes as a wildfire spread on Monday, closing one of Greece’s busiest motorways, halting trains and sending plumes of smoke over the capital.

By the late afternoon, a large fire had also broken out north and east of Athens. A local mayor said he saw at least 100 homes and 200 cars engulfed in flames.

The coast guard said it had transported the bodies of three people a man, a woman and a girl which were passed on by firefighters near the location of one of the two major fires.

The Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, cut short an official visit in Bosnia, and said the government would do “whatever is humanly possible” to control the fires.

Authorities deployed firefighters and equipment from across Greece to deal with the blaze at Kineta, a small resort town about 54km (35 miles) west of Athens on a route used by tens of thousands of drivers daily to reach the Peloponnese peninsula.

A senior fire chief went on state TV to appeal to people to leave the area after some tried to stay at their properties.

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“People should leave, close up their homes and just leave. People cannot tolerate so much smoke for so many hours,” Achilleas Tzouvaras said. “This is an extreme situation.”

Strong winds fanned towering walls of flames stretching as wide as four miles (6km) near Kineta, local officials said. Dozens of homes were thought to have been damaged or destroyed by the blaze. Some householders used hosepipes to try to put out the fires while police assisted with the evacuation of some areas.

The main Athens to Corinth motorway, one of two road routes to the Peloponnese peninsula, was shut and train services were cancelled.

Raging around the Saronicos gulf, the blaze ravaged tracts of pine forest and was visible for miles. An cloud of black and orange smoke hung over the Acropolis hill and the Parthenon temple in Athens on Monday afternoon.

The inferno was thought to have started in a ravine in mountains overlooking Kineta, which is a popular resort town among Athenians.

East of Athens, live footage showed thick plumes of smoke hanging low over Rafina, which has a population of at least 20,000 and dense vegetation.

“I personally saw at least 100 homes in flames,” said Evangelos Bournous, mayor of the Rafina-Pikermi area. “I saw it with my eyes, it is a real total catastrophe.”

Wildfires are common in Greece in summer, but a dry winter has created tinderbox conditions.

Dozens of people died when fires raged for days across the Peloponnese in 2007. Last November, more than 20 people were killed in flash flooding in the area of Mandra near Kineta.