Six drown in horror two days at Australian rivers and beaches

A man and woman who died at Conspicuous Beach near the small town of Walpole on Saturday are a Perth couple with two daughters aged 10 and 14.

Mohammad Swapan and Sabrina Ahmed.

A 38-year-old man who tried to help four children caught in strong ocean currents in Tasmania is the sixth Australian to drown in a horror two days at beaches and rivers on both sides of the country.

Emergency services, including police and Surf Life Saving Tasmania, were called to Carlton Beach, 40km east of Hobart, about 1pm AEDT on Sunday, following reports that a group of swimmers was struggling near the mouth of a river. The children survived and the man was pulled from the water conscious, but he soon required CPR. Despite the efforts of rescuers at the scene, he could not be revived.

About an hours and a half earlier, two sisters from Perth were orphaned in a beach tragedy on the south coast of Western Australia. The girls’ parents – urban designers Mohammad Swapan, 44, and Sabrina Ahmed, 40 – were reportedly trying to help one of their children at notorious Conspicuous Beach near Walpole when they got into difficulty. The children, aged 10 and 14, survived. A third adult, a man aged 42, was also pulled from the water at Conspicuous Beach and hospitalised, but he survived.

The week between Christmas and New Year is known to be Australia’s drowning hotspot, usually accounting for 25 per cent of drownings for the entire year.

There have been 32 drownings in Australia in December, the same as last year and three more than the five-year average for ­December.

Others who died at weekend in what authorities believe to be drownings were a 55-year-old Brisbane man who was pronounced dead after he slipped and fell 30m from Clamshell Falls in the Behana Gorge, 32km south of Cairns, on Sunday.

Later that afternoon, an 18-year-old died after he fell 15m from a rope swing at the Coomera River on the Gold Coast.

Conspicuous Beach on WA’s south coast.

In the ACT, a man drowned at Pine Island – a section of the Murrumbidgee River frequented by residents looking to cool off – after he became trapped underwater.

Royal Life Saving Australia is concerned by the high proportion of Australian children who complete basic swimming lessons in their primary school years but then drop out around the ages of nine, 10 or 11. Those children never reach national benchmarks and are not considered proficient swimmers.

The organisation is also in discussions with the federal government about policies that would ensure migrants learn about beach safety and the risks in rivers and swimming pools. Royal Life Saving Australia already runs swimming lessons for migrant communities, including some in languages other than English, but the number of overseas-born drowning victims has climbed 34 per cent in the past 10 years. The couple who died at Conspicuous Beach, WA, on Saturday were from Bangladesh.

Royal Life Saving Australia research and policy national manager Stacey Pidgeon said making drowning awareness part of a new arrival’s visa process was an option her organisation was open to.

“There are a range of different avenues at a policy level and there are a number of different policies we are looking at,” she said.

“It is important to figure out when the timing is right to give that information. Some of the research that we’ve done shows it is often people who have been here for less than five years who are at the most risk of drowning ... but there are also people who have been here a long time and they never thought they would need to learn to swim.”

Latest data shows the number of small children who drown annually in Australia has declined sharply while the number of drownings overall has increased. There were 323 drowning deaths in Australia in the 2023-24 financial year, 16 per cent higher than the 10-year average of 278 drownings per year. Royal Life Saving Australia’s national drowning report published in August shows the number of children under the age of five who drowned in 2023-24 fell to 15, down by 25 per cent on the 10-year average. A record number of drowning victims – 92 people – were aged 65 and over in 2023-24. Of the overseas-born drowning victims recorded in 2023-24, most were from India, China, Nepal and Britain.

The annual report has found that drowning rates increase tenfold between the ages of 10 and 20, which Royal Life Saving Australia says is “likely due to increases in risk taking, and a lack of swimming, water safety’’.