Mass Phuket beach rescue, five tourists pulled from water – one pronounced dead

[Felt 35]

Its gone to far with greed here and people in tourism related business try to overrun mother nature with "no low season". Well as seen with all the drowning's, boat related accidents etc., they will never beat the weather cycles . 20-25 years ago you never see anyone except local fishermen going near the beaches in Phuket.

[vijer]

I am not a beach person, so maybe that is why, I would not have known what a red flag means.

This is a first I heared of it. The very few times I do go to the beach (Pattaya) I have never seen red flags.

But then if there where big waves, I would not go into the water.

Well RED is universally a sign of danger, guess they were color blind too.

But as someone else posted, they were probably drunk.

[Aussiescott]

I live at karon for past 2 years and go to the beach everyday except if its horrible weather. I was there yesterday, Karon is a very long beach, BUT nearly all the entry walkways to the beach have signs warning tourists about rip tides and undercurrents etc and YES they are in multiple languages as well. In spite of this, i have lost count of all the rescues i have seen, i saw atleast 3 or 4 yesterday as well, but not this one thank God, sorry for the lost life, its terrible!

Some of these signs have diagrams others just warning signs. I have sat sat with my missus over the years and taught her about rips etc, as i am an aussie and lived by the beach all my life and was a clubby when i was young. last year i helped an elderly couple who had been dragged out from a rip.

In defense of the thai lifesavers who are doing a great job IMO, we watched yesterday as they continually told swimmers to stay out of the water where the red flags were. I mean continually, like every 5 minutes, it was a joke to see these tourists keep entering the water there, even though the thais were explaining why they cant swim there. They had 2 x large red flags at either end of a long section of rope with smaller red flags tied to the rope every 11/2 meters or so, the tourists had to lift the rope and walk underneath it to enter the water, what else can they do to stop this?? they had a section of beach literally 30meters wide which it was safe to swim and constantly watched, they are doing a great job with the resources they have.

The majority of swimmers here right now are Chinese, they are everywhere, even more than the usual russians lol

The rip's are very strong here now in the wet season all the way up the west coast of phuket...The one piece of constructive criticism i can add is they need to put 2 x very big "red & yellow" flags to define where the safest and patrolled area of the beach is to swim, this is what the tourists need to be inducted in when they are about to land on the plane on their arrival into phuket/thailand..... "SWIM BETWEEN THE RED & YELLOW FLAGS ALWAYS", just like we were taught as little nippers when we were kids in Australia.

[GirlDrinkDrunk]

Why ignore the red flag; it seems tourist need an induction before being permitted to enter the beach. Another very sad experience for families holidaying in Thailand

they most certainly don't ignore the flags twice.

a large number of these deaths is caused by arrogance.

joe tourist flips off the funny little brown man waving at him and goes for a swim.

i cant recall the last female tourist to die because of the rip or the waves. funny dat.

[stevenl]

i cant recall the last female tourist to die because of the rip or the waves. funny dat.

I never thought about that, but neither can I.

[fiddlehead]

Along with red flags, why not post signs that say BEACH CLOSED in about 20 languages

Took this picture this morning:

The way I read it, it says "No Swimming" in 10 different languages.

There was at least 8 people swimming just in front of the red flag.

2 of them were children.

It's not the lifeguard's fault folks.

[sevenhills]

In the image, the surf is still VERY small. It would hardly be a yellow flag in Australia.

I doubt many people would even bother trying to ride those waves as they are hardly big enough to do anything with.

I guess you have not heard of Undertows and Rips??

Being Australian you should know better??

[Old Croc]

i cant recall the last female tourist to die because of the rip or the waves. funny dat.

I never thought about that, but neither can I.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/480302-aussie-woman-missing-feared-drowned-off-phuket/