Bereaved family members of the five young Asian men who died at Camber Sands, have raised questions regarding the safety measures on the beach - as public launched an online petition calling for action.
The five young men who died at Camber Sands were two brothers and their friends enjoying a day trip to the popular beach, it has emerged, as the family of one of the victims questioned why no lifeguard was present there.
The deaths have intensified calls for lifeguards to be stationed at the beach. There are no permanent lifeguards at Camber Sands, and a petition on Change.org set up last month by Josie Holloway, from Greatstone, a coastal town about 10 miles away, called for them to be stationed there during the summer.
Three of the men were pulled out of the sea at Camber Sands, near Rye, East Sussex, on Wednesday afternoon and two others were found later that evening when the tide receded.
They have been named locally as Nitharsan Ravi, 22, Inthushan Sriskantharasa, 23, brothers Kobi, 22, and Ken Nathan, 19, and Kurushanth Srithavarajah, 27.
The five, all from Greater London, had travelled in Ravi's car. Ravi, a student at the University of Brighton was studying aeronautical engineering. Some suggested that they were perhaps playing football on a sandbar and got cut off by a strong tide. Guardian reported as relatives and friends gathered in support at Ravi’s family home in Plumstead, south-east London, his distraught younger sister Mayura, 17, sobbed and clutched her brother’s T-shirt as she said: “The people he died with are all his best friends, really close mates.”
The family was really angry that the stretch of beach had not been blocked off after a man died there last month. She added: “Now it’s been blocked. Why didn’t they do it before? They could have saved five other lives.”
Ravi’s brother Ajirthan, 19, said police came to their door at 11pm on Wednesday as his brother’s Golf GTI was one of the only vehicles left in the car park.
“Because of the incident, they were assuming that the five passengers of the car were the five people they found,” he said. “...Then, about four hours later, they confirmed it’s my brother and his four friends.”
He said the emergency services had told the family that Ken and Inthushan had got into difficulty first, getting trapped in quicksand or mud beneath the water, then his brother, Kobi Nathan and Kurushanth had tried to rescue them. Both died within 15 minutes after being pulled from the water, he said.
The petition for a lifeguard stationed at that beach, has received more than 5,000 signatures and states: “Camber Sands gets unbelievably busy during summer time. They have beach patrol but no lifeguards … I feel it could save lives.”
The list of signatories has been growing rapidly since Wednesday’s deaths.
The RNLI said that while it was too early to determine any change in the location of its lifeguards, the policy was under constant review and Wednesday’s events would be factored into the charity’s planning.
