Two bodies were recovered from the sea following a massive operation by Guardia Civil and the coastguard. In a double tragedy, a young Russian man jumped into the water to help a Finnish friend and they both died.
The tragedy happened at La Zorra cove in Torrevieja. Extensive rescue efforts were hampered by stormy weather and it took authorities over 24 hours to recover the bodies of both of the young victims. The deceased are a 24 year old Finnish woman and a 23 year old Russian man. According to the Russian man’s wife, the three friends were at the cove on Thursday when the Finnish woman got into difficulty in the water due to the stormy conditions. The Russian man jumped into the sea to try to help her ashore, but both were engulfed by the waves in what is a very rocky area with difficult access.
The Russian man’s wife immediately raised the alarm and at around half past four in the afternoon, emergency services arrived. Guardia Civil deployed an extensive search and rescue mission with units on land, sea and in the air, supported by Torrevieja Local Police.
The body of the 24-year-old Finnish woman, who was initially thought to be from Sweden, was located late on Thursday on Los Locos beach, three kilometers south of the area where she had disappeared.
At dusk the search for the man was suspended and the operation was reactivated at dawn. Guardia Civil received numerous tipoffs from citizens who claimed to have seen a floating body but almost all were false alarms.
However, a call that claimed a member of the public had spotted the man’s body at Cala de la Higuera saw Guardia Civil focus its efforts there. The storm caused the man’s body to disappear into the waves and divers from the GEAS specialist unit of the Guardia Civil could not initially dive to recover the body because of conditions and instead had to wait for the storm to subside.
Shortly before five on Friday afternoon, the body was recovered and transferred to land.