Four drownings in two months: Phuket Lifeguard Club

PHUKET: At least four people have drowned in the rough monsoon surf at Phuket beaches over the past two months.

The Phuket Lifeguard Club’s latest incident report says two died in 371 “incidents” between September 26 and October 25.

The number of incidents was up sharply over the previous four weeks, when 184 incidents were reported.

As usual, foreigners were the vast majority of those receiving assistance – about 80% on average.

In addition to the two drownings since September 26, eight people suffered injuries requiring hospital admittance. Five of these were foreigners.

Patong Beach had the highest number of reported incidents for the period, 188, followed by Kata (67), Karon (54) and Nai Harn (16).

Most incidents involved people being caught in rip tides.

There were also 11 reports of jellyfish stings over the past four weeks, 10 of them involving foreigners at Patong Beach.

— Sitthipong Nongkaew