Thursday, November 22, 2007

Tragedies at Tossa de Mar and Rumelifeneri

It's hard to report a tragedy news on Thanksgiving holiday. My friend and fellow blogger Robin Stormer first alerted me this news through his kind Happy Thanksgiving email while I was enjoying the visit of my daughter and her family and playing with my granddaughters. The news has been widely reported. May be this BBC report tells it all:
A British man and his five-year-old son have drowned after being swept out to sea in Spain, the Foreign Office said.

The man's two sons were washed into the sea as he took a picture of them at a popular beauty spot at Tossa de Mar, near Barcelona, on the Costa Brava.

The Spanish news agency Europa Press reported the man managed to rescue one of the boys.

But he was overcome as he tried to recover his second son. Next of kin have been notified, officials say.

Europa Press reported that rescue firefighters in a helicopter had spotted the man and his son clinging to a life buoy, but rough seas prevented them from reaching the duo in time.

Both bodies were later retrieved 30m (98ft) from the beach.

The Spanish coast has been hit by stormy weather this week.



It is really hard to believe that human tragedy can happen in a stunningly sceneic place like this. But the story is certainly not new on this blog. It's that freaque, unpredictable on shore wave that had caused so many tragedies all over the world. Other than asking people to be watchful and constantly beware, there is no way to prevent it at the present. Just a couple of days before this, On the north coast of Turkey, Sabah reported that "A weekend outing by a family to a village in Rumelifeneri, a village located at the junction of the Bosphorus and the Black Sea, turned into a tragedy. Sudden giant waves swallowed up both a father and daughter." Here's what happened:
A general manager Tayfun Gökhan, his foreign wife, his foreign brother-in-law and his daughter went to the seaside in Rumelifener for dinner. While the family was walking along the seaside, a giant wave pulled Aylin and her uncle into the sea. The mother Alexandra watched in horror as father Tayfun Gökhan jumped into the sea to save them. While the father was trying to swim against the giant waves, the uncle's leg was broken immediately after he was dragged into the sea. The coast guards rescued the uncle and recovered the dead body of the little girl; however efforts are ongoing to locate the father.
It's a different coast, with totally different people, but hauntingly similar stories. Those sneaky freaque waves. Will there ever be an end to this kind of tragic happenings?

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