Beach
Swimmers jump off a jetty to escape the summer heat at Henley Beach, west of Adelaide. Reuters/Ben Macmahon

The year 2016 started tragically in Adelaide with two 11-year-old boys drowning at the local Glenelg Beach. The two victims were reportedly playing on the breakwater before they slipped on the rocks and fell in the water, a lifesaving official said. The incident occurred around 6 p.m. on New Year's Day.

Emergency crews responded to a call that a few children were stuck in life-threatening situation near the Glenelg jetty. Upon reaching the spot, the crew pulled out three children from the water, but two remained missing initially, South Australia Police said in a statement.

The crew found the two 11-year-old boys unresponsive shortly afterward. One of them died on the spot, while ambulance crews tried to revive the other after taking him to the Women's and Children's Hospital in critical condition. He was pronounced dead upon arrival. Both boys were friends and hailed from Adelaide's northern suburbs. According to ABC News, three of the five boys were saved.

A dog walker reportedly found one of the boys when he was around 100 meters from the spot. “The children were on rocks and they fell off,” an onlooker told News Corp Australia. “They found one person soon after but after about 10 minutes of searching for the other person, someone found him washed up there."

The water at that spot is quite deep and hard to swim in, resulting to the tragedy, Andrew Bedford, Surf Life Saving South Australia SA emergency operations manager, told ABC. "They were playing, I believe, on the breakwater and slipped off the rocks into the breakwater."

"There is quite a deep channel on the other side of the breakwater there, so very hard to swim with the current that's running through there as well," he added.

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