A body of water in Sweden (illustration).
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Pixabay / TransferAb
Four people died accidentally on Thursday evening after slipping through ice on a lake in southern Sweden.
A tragedy which occurred while the country is facing a major warming climate.
The victims, four men aged between 65 and 75, were found in an ice hole in Lake Sävsjö, south of the town of Jönköping.
They could not be revived after being taken out of the water, said a spokeswoman for the local police.
The exact circumstances of the accident remain to be established, she explained.
Frequent accidents but not so serious
These accidents, often linked to the carelessness of walkers on too fragile ice, are common in Sweden but it is rare that the results are so heavy.
After several weeks of intense cold over much of the country, which attracted many walkers to the frozen lakes and inlets, Sweden has been faced in recent days with a rapid rise in temperatures in many regions.
A national temperature record for February was even broken on Thursday.
A peak at 16.8 degrees was recorded in Kalmar, on the south-eastern coast of the country, according to the meteorological institute SMHI.
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