“Terrible and traumatic,” is how the Surf Life Saving New South Wales chief, Steven Pearce, summed up what has been declared the deadliest Easter long weekend on record, well before it was even over.
Seven people across NSW and Victoria were confirmed to have drowned by the morning of Easter Monday, and while the fatal heavy seas had returned to largely normal levels, crews were still searching for two people missing since Good Friday.
The tragedies occurred at different beaches across the east coast of Australia, and while most involved alarmingly large waves sweeping swimmers or fishers off rocks, their varying circumstances were the result of a deadly confluence of factors.
Authorities have blamed what they call a perfect storm for beach fatalities: a low-pressure system generating hazardous surf; unseasonably warm and sunny weather; and risky behaviour when much of the nation was enjoying a long weekend.
Dean Narramore, a senior meteorologist at the Bureau of Meteorology, said the writing was on the wall early on Friday.
“The main driver was a very deep and intense low-pressure system west of New Zealand, that combined with an upper level low,” he explained.
That generated strong winds, which drove the large swells. “The energy moved westwards,” Narramore said, with some swells refracted to eastern Victoria.
At the same time, a high-pressure system over eastern Australia brought warm northerly winds, with temperatures 5-10C above average.
“There was plenty of sunshine, and all of that combined with the Easter long weekend meant a lot of people were heading out to the beach,” Narramore said.
By mid-morning, images began swirling online of violent waves at some of NSW’s most famous beaches, with surging seas crashing on to roads and into shopfronts. Wave heights exceeded five metres.
In Sydney, with temperatures reaching the mid-20s, even beaches within the city’s harbour, which are traditionally calm and protected from coastal swells, were closed.
The closures did not stop everyone. Surfers were seen riding waves at the usually waveless Balmoral and Nielsen Park beaches.
At the coastal beach of Coogee, swimmers and surfers defied closures.
At Manly’s Queenscliff beach, footage circulated of swimmers gripping to handlebars before being swept from its ocean pool.
In Newcastle, ferocious waves reached well past the beach, with wheelie bins seen dragged into the water.
Within hours, details of the first drownings were announced by authorities.
A 58-year-old man had been washed off a breakwall at Wollongong harbour early on Friday as he walked to a fishing spot. Family members jumped in but failed to save him.
Later, at Middle Head Point on Sydney’s north shore, a man was washed off rocks and drowned.
By the late afternoon, a young man was “extricated from the water face down” at Eden, on the far south coast of NSW, after being washed off rocks.
In Victoria, three Chinese nationals at San Remo beach near Phillip Island were swept into the sea. One woman was rescued, but another was pulled from the water unconscious and could not be revived. Her 41-year-old husband could not be located.
“Every drowning is a tragedy, and this is an absolutely tragic start to the Easter long weekend,” Pearce said on Friday night, as search teams looked for a swimmer who went missing from Sydney’s Little Bay beach, last seen struggling in the swell in the mid-afternoon.
Despite Pearce’s warnings, things would only get worse. While wave heights eased slightly on Saturday, to between two and four metres, conditions remained hazardous and many beaches were closed.
More deaths on the coast
Two people rock fishing at Tathra, on the NSW south coast, were swept into the ocean. One returned conscious and breathing. The other was later found dead.
On Sunday morning, another two rock fishers braved conditions, this time at Wattamolla, just south of Sydney. They were swept off rocks, with the Westpac helicopter called in to save them. They were both retrieved, with one pronounced dead at the scene.
Later that day, a nine-year-old boy became trapped between rocks at a beach on the NSW mid north coast. Distraught witnesses told the Daily Telegraph how the parents of the boy, trapped from the chest, were unable to free him. They held his hand and spoke to him, but as tides rose, he ultimately drowned.
Meanwhile, more than 150 rescues were made by volunteer and professional lifesavers across NSW, with an alarming number of near misses. Rescue helicopters had performed 30 missions by Monday morning.
By Monday afternoon, once swells had returned to near normal levels, Victorian authorities called off the search for the missing 41-year-old Chinese national.
It brought the death toll from the long weekend to eight, as searches continued for the swimmer missing off Sydney’s Little Bay beach.
Devastating but predictable
Pearce said the outcome was devastating for volunteer surf lifesavers, but predictable.
“There’s no other description I would have to say for such a religious weekend this has been absolutely horrific,” he said.
“[It’s] just the culmination of hot temperatures, a long weekend, hundreds of thousands of people going to the coastline and an enormous swell.”
Every fatality that surf lifesavers responded to in NSW related to someone being washed off a rock.
With the long weekend over, Pearce was wary of the coming Anzac Day long weekend, despite rain predicted.
“Our volunteer lifesavers and our lifeguards have risked their lives multitudes of times.”
He urged swimmers to only enter the water at patrolled beaches.
“If there is no red and yellow flags flying, there will be no one there … that can possibly save you.”
