Five surfers die in ‘foam avalanche’ in Netherlands

‘The manner in which so many young lives has been cut off is unimaginably cruel’, says mayor

Five experienced surfers drowned after they were caught in rough weather off the coast of The Hague.

The group of men jumped into the sea in Scheveningen on Monday afternoon and got into trouble when heavy weather caused up to a metre of foam to form on top of the waves, Dutch authorities said.

“People here know that the sea gives and takes, but the manner in which so many young lives has been cut off is unimaginably cruel,” the mayor, Johan Remkes, told a news conference.

He described the victims as “fit, young sporty people who know the water there like the back of their hands.”

On Tuesday, people gathered on the beach clutching flowers.

Rescue workers discovered two bodies on Monday and found two more on Tuesday morning.

The fifth body was spotted in the sea but could not yet be retrieved.

It is thought they could not deal with the combination of heavy weather, northerly winds and swells that hit the Dutch coast.

Another problem was an excessively thick layer of foam had drifted on the North Sea waters by the beaches.

The victims were aged between 22 and 38 and they lived locally.