Camber Sands: Safety fears after death of five friends

The deaths of five young men at Camber Sands in East Sussex has focused attention on the dangers of bathing on Britain's coastline.

The men, childhood friends originally from Sri Lanka, drowned on Wednesday after being caught in treacherous currents while on a day trip from south-east London. They are believed to have been cut off from the incoming tide while playing football on a sandbar - a strip of sand surrounded by water.

According to the Daily Mail, two of them, Kenigan Nathan, 19, and Inthushan Sriskantharasa, 23, became trapped in quicksand.

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Kobi Nathan, 22, Nitharsan Ravi, 22, and Kurushanth Srithavarajah, 26, tried to save them, but are thought to have been dragged to their deaths by a powerful riptide.

Rescuers pulled three of the bodies from the sea during the afternoon. The remaining two were recovered when the tide went out later in the evening.

The deaths have prompted questions about the lack of permanent lifeguards on Camber Sands, a long stretch of beach that can draw up to 25,000 bathers on a sunny day. A petition calling for lifeguards has gathered more than 7,000 signatures.

The families have also joined the call. Ravi's sister, Mayura, asked: "Why didn't they do it before? They could have saved five other lives", while his brother, Ajirthan, said: "They drowned because of a lack of stamina from the tidal effect. A lifeguard could have saved their lives."

RNLI chief Ross MacLeod has advised any swimmer caught in a riptide to relax, try to float and signal for help. "People can panic when they feel they are being pulled out to sea and that is dangerous," he told The Sun.

Until now, there had been few accounts of quicksand at Camber Sands, says The Times, but it quotes a warning on the TripAdvisor website in which one contributor describes being "up to our waists in quicksand" after taking an inflatable boat into the water.

Camber Sands: Identities of five bodies a mystery to police

25 August

Five people died at Camber Sands, East Sussex, yesterday, on the hottest day of the year so far. Another person is believed to be missing.

Three men died after they "got into difficulties in the water" at about 2.15pm, despite the efforts of emergency services and others on the beach.

Two more bodies, believed to be men, were discovered by a member of public when the tide went out at around 8pm.

The same person reported seeing someone else in the water. The RNLI had two lifeboats and a helicopter searching the area.

Onlookers reported seeing police on the beach urging swimmers to stay out of the water before a large section of the sand was cordoned off. Witness Natalja Taylor captured footage of a rescue helicopter arriving at the scene.

Another onlooker suggested some of the men were fully clothed, prompting speculation they might have been refugees trying to cross from Europe.

Sussex Police is yet to identify the men or say whether they were connected to one another, but said there was "nothing to suggest" they were migrants or asylum-seekers.

Yesterday's deaths bring the toll around Britain's coastline to 12 in six days, after a series of incidents claimed seven lives last weekend.