A 17-YEAR-old boy has died on a beach after being buried alive in a hole in the sand.
The teenager is believed to have suffocated to death in a hole he had dug on the beach after the sand collapsed on him.
Emergency services were called to reports of the lifeless teenager on Montalto di Castro beach, in north westItaly yesterday.
Ricardo B., from Rome, was found buried alive, after he had “built a tunnel” on the beach.
A swimmer who was nearby at the time of the incident told local news: “He had built a tunnel. He wanted to enter from one side and exit from the other.
“But as he passed through, when he reached the center, everything collapsed and the hole was completely covered.
“You couldn’t see anything anymore; you could have walked right through it and not noticed a thing.”
Another local added that there were no screams or sounds as the boy was buried “in a matter of moments”.
He said: “When the sand closes in on you, it’s incredibly heavy.
“It doesn’t even let a little oxygen in, and it’s not easy to extract people because it tends to collapse. A few minutes later, they die of suffocation.”
The 17-year-old was at the beach with his family when he dug the one and a half meters deep hole, near the California campsite, on the border of the Tarquinia region.
He had initially been with his two younger siblings, aged 3 and 8, who then wandered off while their dad was taking a nap.
An urgent hunt for the teenager was launched at around 3pm when the family discovered he was missing.
“A tragedy that has left us all shocked,” Montalto Mayor Emanuela Socciarelli told ANSA.
“It’s unthinkable that a young man could lose his life in this way. I want to offer my sincere condolences to this family, to whom we are all truly deeply connected.”
