Fatal accident on the beach Two boys buried by masses of sand in Denmark
The police have cordoned off the scene of the accident.
Image: dpa
The two boys were buried under masses of sand and earth for around 40 minutes.
Image: dpa
The police have cordoned off the scene of the accident.
Image: dpa
The two boys were buried under masses of sand and earth for around 40 minutes.
Image: dpa
Two boys from the Munich area are buried by a mass of sand on a beach in northern Denmark. Days after the accident, the sad certainty now prevails: they are dead.
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- Two boys from Germany have died in a tragic accident in Denmark.
- While playing in the dunes, they were buried by masses of sand and earth.
- The first responders were only able to remove the masses of earth with a tractor.
- The two boys died in hospital.
The police are calling it a tragic accident: two boys from Germany were suddenly buried by a mass of sand and earth while playing on a North Sea beach in Denmark and died. According to the Danish police, the two were from the Munich area. They were nine and twelve years old.
The two boys were buried under a mass of sand in a landslide in Nørre Vorupør in the north of Denmark on Sunday. First responders dug feverishly for them before the boys could be rescued around 40 minutes after the first emergency call.
They received first aid and were taken to hospital by helicopter. Their condition was critical. Since then, it had remained unclear whether their situation had improved or worsened.
Now there is sad certainty: the two died on Tuesday evening, as the police announced, citing the Central Jutland region. According to the police, the boys' families expressed their gratitude for the help and support they had received from local people. The boys' parents were at the scene when the accident happened.
Boys were playing in the dunes
The small coastal town of Nørre Vorupør is located on the North Danish North Sea coast about 250 kilometers north of the German-Danish border. The police's findings so far indicate that the two boys had been playing on the beach and had dug a kind of cave in the dunes.
This could have triggered the sudden landslide. As it had rained heavily recently, it is also thought that this could have increased the risk of landslides on the coast. The cause of the accident has not yet been clarified.
The head of the rescue station, Benny Bak, reported to the Danish radio station DR that he and a colleague had warned the two boys a few minutes earlier. "They jumped off the dunes and were about to dig a hole," said Bak. His colleague had told them to get away from there because it was dangerous and could collapse.
Warning of unstable dunes
After the landslide, the boys were lying under huge, heavy lumps of sand and grass. The first responders were only able to remove these masses of earth using a tractor and wire.
Also on Sunday, a mudslide broke loose elsewhere in the region. A ten-year-old German boy had to be rescued. He did not sustain any major injuries: according to the police, he escaped with back pain.
The Danish authorities took the two incidents as an opportunity to warn at the start of the week that wet weather could make the dunes unstable. This increases the risk of collapse, warned various authorities.
