Three swimmers are dead after a tragic start to 2026 as emergency crews desperately look for other people missing in waters off the NSW coast.
Three people have drowned nationwide, and two people are missing and feared dead, as rescue crews resume water searches and multiple beaches remain locked down.
Two women died in NSW off the coast and an Irish national drowned at a popular Queensland tourist beach.
Surf Lifesaving NSW CEO Steve Pearce described the death toll so far for 2026 as “absolutely horrendous.”
“Three confirmed drownings, and potentially another two with those searches continuing for two gentlemen … means we potentially have lost five people within 24 hours,” he told Sydney radio 2GB on Jan. 2.
The tragic start to 2026 began on eastern Sydney beaches when emergency services were called to Maroubra at 4 a.m. on Jan. 1.
Witnesses told police a 25-year-old woman, believed to be a Chinese national, had been hit by a wave that knocked her into a tidal rock pool before further waves swept her into the Pacific Ocean.
She was found at 5 a.m. and could not be resuscitated.
At nearby Coogee Beach, surf lifesavers on jet skis were searching for a missing swimmer after emergency services were alerted just after 6 a.m. on Jan. 1.
Television news footage showed a fully clothed police officer entering the water to try to save the man, 25, but he slipped away. Two other people were rescued.
The search and rescue mission for the missing swimmer is continuing with jet skis and several marine police watercraft deployed, but there are grave fears for the man’s survival.
On Jan. 1 afternoon, a woman, 45, was pulled from the water off Dunbogan Beach, at Dunbogan on the NSW mid north coast, but could not be revived.
Further north in Queensland’s Whitsundays, a 35-year-old Irish man was found dead in the water on New Year’s Eve at Whitehaven Beach.
The incidents follow the death of a man in Sydney on New Year’s Eve after a dinghy capsized at Palm Beach.
Two men and a 14-year-old boy were in the vessel when it overturned in rough conditions around Barrenjoey Headland about 11.35 a.m.
A man was pulled from the water by surf lifesavers and treated by paramedics, but he died at the scene, and the second man was winched to safety by helicopter.
A large-scale search for the teenager is ongoing but has been scaled back.
By AAP
