Rennes (AFP)
A boat capsized off Agon-Coutainville (Channel) Monday afternoon and, among the six occupants, three children aged 7, 9 and 13 died, said Monday from the fire department.
The three children were in cardiac arrest when they were rescued and could not be resuscitated while the three adults who accompanied them were uninjured or slightly injured, according to the same source.
An investigation was opened by the parquet of Coutances, indicated the maritime prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea in a statement.
The three dead children are two girls of 9 and 13 years and a boy of 7, according to the help.
The fishing-promenade speedboat, on which all six passengers were boarding, "turned around 800 meters from Passous beach in Agon-Coutainville," said the maritime prefecture.
This is a witness call that triggered the alert at 3:33 pm A boat from the nearby sailing school immediately headed for the capsize site, following an alert from the CROSS (Regional Operational Center for Rescue and Rescue at Sea) of Jobourg. The latter immediately hired "the Dragon helicopter of civil security stationed in Granville (50), two units of the National Society of Sea Rescuers (SNSM) of Agon-Coutainville and Blainville, the Passous rescue station, firefighters of the SDIS 50 and the SAMU 50 ", indicates the statement of the maritime prefecture.
"The boat as well as all the passengers were brought back to the beach of Passous where they were taken care of, in a state of emergency, by the medical teams and the firemen", concludes the statement of the maritime prefecture.
The minister of the ecological and solidarity transition, Elisabeth Borne, expressed in a tweet her "very strong emotion following the dramatic assessment of the capsizing occurred in the #Manche, all our thoughts and our solidarity with the families and relatives of the victims". The minister added: "Infinite recognition towards the @SauveteursenMer and the services of the State which are mobilized on the spot".
© 2019 AFP