A vacation took a tragic turn for a 17-year-old boy who died after a sand tunnel he was constructing suddenly gave way, entombing him.
Italian media identified the teenager as Riccardo Boni. He was on holiday with his family in Montalto di Castro, Italy, when the event happened on Thursday, July 10.
The Boni family was lodged at a resort in Montalto di Castro. The collapse occurred around 3:00 p.m. local time as he was on the shore with his father and siblings.
A local news source reported that Riccardo Boni and his younger siblings had moved nearer to the water’s edge, starting to excavate a sizable hole, reportedly almost five feet deep, in a more isolated part of the beach. Their father, meanwhile, was nearby, sleeping under a beach umbrella.
Without warning, the tunnel’s walls crumbled, burying the teenager under the sand, as reported by the outlet.
The boy stayed interred until his father awoke and noticed his eldest son was absent. One of his brothers exclaimed, “Riccardo is under the sand.” The siblings then indicated the collapsed tunnel’s location, leading their father and other beachgoers to quickly dig in an urgent search for him.
Regrettably, the boy was discovered buried in the sand, unconscious and lifeless. Emergency services, including an air ambulance, reached the scene swiftly and attempted resuscitation, but it was too late to save the boy, the outlet stated.
“Nobody understood what occurred,” Lieutenant Daniele Tramontana, the Carabiniere officer in charge of the police inquiry, informed The Sun.
“A significant amount of time was lost because he was out of sight. By the time they realized he was gone and started searching, it was already too late,” he added.
A beach witness informed Corriere della Serra that “no one on the beach heard the teenager’s screams as he was entirely covered by sand within minutes.”
A police investigation has since been initiated “against unknown individuals” concerning the fatal incident, the outlet noted, with authorities weighing the necessity of an autopsy.
“I’ve spoken with colleagues, and we’ve never encountered anything like this occurring in Italy previously,” Tramontana stated. “We frequently handle dreadful situations, but we cannot comprehend how a beach game culminated in such a manner.”