SHOCKING BATHING DISASTER.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XV, Issue 111, 10 August 1925, Page 5

SHOCKING BATHING DISASTER.

EIGHTEEN CHILDREN DROWNED. (Received 10, 10.45 a.in.) Paris, Aug. 9. A bathing disaster of a most shocking character has occurred at the seaside. Thirty-five small children, whose parents worked at the Roubaix factories, were enjoying a treat in charge of Father de Laporte. The Father warned the children that the tide was rising and some tried to take a short cut to the sand dunes, but were caught by the incomings tide, and fell into deep hollows among the shifting sands. Father de Laporte and two abbes plunged into tho sea and rescued several in an unconscious state, and other onlookers made fruitless attempts at rescue. Later eight children recovered consciousness, but at least eighteen were drowned. The sand in the locality is most deceptive. It often appears flat when its total rise and fall measures several feet. It alters with every tide when the sea is rough.—(Argus.) When Father de Laporte saw the danger he called to the children to make a chain by holding each other’s hands, and follow him. Unfortunately the chain broke, and the children, seized with panic, dashed frantically into the water, which lay between them and dry land, though it was several feet deep. Some of the boys were carried out to sea by the tide and the bodies were thrown up on tho shore later in the day. The priests worked upon some apparently drowned children for three hours before consciousness was recovered. AU tho dead were boys. There were shocking scenes when parents, hearing of the disaster, hurried to Chapellc Ardcntc Hardelot, not knowing whether they would have to identify their own children.—(A. and N.Z.) ‘