"We saw how smoke came out of a bather, we went and it was totally burned"

Mallorca is trying to recover today from the tragedy experienced yesterday shortly before four in the afternoon on one of its most idyllic beaches,

, a sandy area in the northeast of the island that at this time of year is usually still crowded with tourists.

Two of them, a 52-year-old German who was spending his honeymoon in the area, and a 65-year-old Swiss retiree, were struck yesterday by lightning.

One died instantly.

The other, after being very serious and trying to be revived for more than half an hour by the

on the beach, finally died on the same sand.

His wife, unharmed, was left in a state of shock.

Rescue professionals could do nothing to save his life while working in very difficult conditions, with a violent storm overhead.

The storm came from the sea.

It didn't rain much, but there was an intense electrical apparatus.

It unloaded

in the area as it sped up the coast.

It was sudden, shocking and temporary, so much so that the sun came out again that same afternoon, when the corpses awaited the arrival of forensic experts.

"Lightning struck and my colleague

of a bather, we went and found two dead, one was totally burned", explained, still shocked and at the scene of the events, Federico Parisi, one of the two rescuers, in statements to

.

The yellow alert had been decreed minutes before by the State Meteorological Agency.

The rescue teams applied the protocol when the storm broke out.

"We put up the red flag and took out all the bathers, alerting people," the two experienced beach rescue professionals, both experienced, recounted, still affected.

"We were able to give notice with the red flag and the whistle for people to get out of the water but

, it is impossible," another of the lifeguards, Ariel Gastón, told regional television

, visibly upset .

After certifying the irremediable death of the tourist directly struck by lightning, this second lifeguard tried to save the life of the second injured person, who was a few meters from the first victim when the lightning struck Cala Mesquida.

Both were in the nudist area of ​​the beach, the one that suffered the terrible impact of lightning.

"We tried to revive him, under the storm, it was very difficult."

Health workers from the nearest health center traveled by ambulance to the scene, away from the main towns.

For

they tried to revive the man, who finally died.

"You never expect it," said the

, Joaquín Rodríguez, without being able to explain what had happened and the Dantesque scenario that the agents encountered when they arrived at the beach.

Although it is not the first time that lightning has caused the death of a tourist on a beach in Mallorca (a 30-year-old Italian died in 1995 after taking refuge under a tree in Santa Ponça), it is an unusual event.

Just a week ago it was

among tourists who died on a beach in the middle of a late-summer storm, although under different circumstances.

drowned while swimming in the middle of a storm at dawn on a beach in the municipality of Manacor.

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