Two young Irish women were drowned in the Atlantic Ocean off the French resort town of Biarritz early yesterday, the victims of a late-night swim and treacherous currents.
Ms Heather Young (19) and Ms Janet Nicholson (21) were both students from Rathmines, Dublin. They had arrived in Biarritz a few days earlier and were renting an apartment near Marbella Plage with other young people. Their friends were questioned by police after the tragedy and were described as extremely distressed.
Witnesses said Ms Young and Ms Nicholson had the idea of going swimming at 2.30 a.m. yesterday. A third swimmer, a young American man, succeeded with great difficulty in saving himself.
Biarritz is known as a surfing spot with big waves and a dangerous undertow. Lifeguards keep watch in the daytime and beaches are often closed to swimmers when weather conditions and tides are unsafe.
The Irish women were victims of the storms that ravaged southwestern France on Tuesday night. "Thirty-six hours later, there were still powerful swells," Richard Picotin, the Biarritz correspondent for Sud Ouest newspaper, said. The storm had already killed four people, two of them Dutch tourists. Two other Irish students died on holiday this week, one in Pittsburg, the other in Cyprus.
"It was low tide and that is the most dangerous time," Mr Picotin continued. "They were unlucky - it may have been the only moment in the whole summer when there was great danger in that specific place. You can be a metre away from a rip-tide and it doesn't touch you."
Several swimmers die in similar circumstances every summer, Lieut Franck Berger of the fire and rescue service said. Last year some Spanish students drowned on the same beach.
"We received a phone call at 2.56 a.m.," Lieut Berger said. "The man managed to pull himself out, but the girls lost their footing and were swept away." He said it was the sort of current that "can pull you 200 metres in a few seconds".
Lieut Berger and six other rescue workers searched the beaches, while a gendarmerie helicopter and a patrol boat combed the area. The boat found the first body at 5.30 a.m., the second at 6.15 a.m. Both were between 300 and 600 metres from the shore. The bodies had been pulled nearly a kilometre north, to the Côte des Basques. A French pathologist confirmed that both women died by drowning.
Mr Didier Borotra, the mayor of Biarritz, issued a statement expressing his "sadness and emotion" at the deaths. "I would also like to emphasise the real danger that the ocean represents in all circumstances and remind people to swim only on beaches with lifeguards," he added. "The grief that has cruelly struck two families touches our entire town."