‘Tourists, stop making stupid and dangerous selfies’, authorities plead

AUTHORITIES have had it with tourists risking their lives in the quest for the perfect holiday selfie, following the recent deaths of tourists doing just that.

Authorities are imploring tourists to stop taking risky selfies.

AUTHORITIES have had it with tourists risking their lives in the quest for the perfect holiday selfie, following the recent deaths of tourists doing just that.

Officials at a UNESCO World Heritage national park are going so far as to ban visitors wearing thongs following increasingly risky behaviour by camera-wielding tourists.

Croatia’s Plitvice Lakes National Park, which attracts about one million visitors a year, has been the site of a number of deaths and dramatic rescue operations.

Authorities have now taken to Twitter to plead with tourists to stop being “stupid”.

About one person each year falls to their death at Plitvice Lakes National Park in central Croatia.

“Dear tourists, we respect you. It’s time for you to start respecting yourself. So, stop making stupid and dangerous selfies. Thank you”, the Croatian Mountain Rescue Service said in a tweet.

Recently, the national park’s spokesman Ognen Borcic said the park would soon ban entry to people wearing “summer shoes, flip-flops, slippers, and sandals”.

The service said each year at least one person died and up to 1200 rescue operations took place at Plitvice Lakes National Park.

The number of rescues is five times more than a decade ago, it added.

Recently, a Canadian tourist, 20, managed to survive after they slipped and fell about 70m off a high rock while trying to take a selfie next to the region’s picturesque waterfalls.

Authorities plan to stop visitors wearing unsuitable shoes from entering the rugged national park. Picture: Coralie Ferreira

A Slovakian tourist, 54, was killed at the same location after ignoring safety warnings, jumping the fence and falling off the cliff’s edge.

An elderly German couple were also killed when they got separated from their tour group in the national park and walked over a high vantage point, falling into the water.

The warning about risky selfies from Croatian authorities comes after weeks after two tourists plummeted to their deaths while posing for photographs in separate tragedies in Peru.

Peru has been the site of two tragic selfie-related deaths, including one at the famed Machu Picchu.

On June 29, a South Korean tourist, 28, plunged 488m from a cliff at the Gocta waterfall in Peru’s Amazonas region while attempting to take a selfie. Rescue teams recovered his body which was submerged more than 6m underwater.

Within hours, a German tourist, 51, fell 40m to his death after he lost his footing while leaping into the air for a “flying selfie” at Machu Picchu in Peru.

Selfies have been linked to at least 23 deaths so far this year, compared to the 24 deaths during the whole of 2015.

Some commentators have suggested selfies are responsible for more deaths than shark attacks, while others have refuted the claim, saying that shark attacks are a direct cause of death but selfie-taking in itself is not.