The official swimming season has started along Portugal’s coast with designated beaches having life guards in place and concessions looking forward to a record year.
The dangers of swimming pools again are in the news as two families already have suffered the tragedy of having a toddler drown.
A three-year-old Portuguese boy drowned on Saturday afternoon in a pool at a property in Albardeira, Lagos.
Emergency services were called at 5.30pm and tried to resuscitate the boy for an hour but he later was declared dead at Portimão Hospital.
That same evening a British three-year-old drowned in a pool at Praia d’El Rei, Óbidos, where his family was on holiday.
Seven people drowned at Portugal’s beaches last season, a decrease of almost 60% compared to 2013, when 12 people died.
Only one case was reported for the Algarve region which involved a Portuguese woman who drowned at Praia do Cabeço in Vila Real de Santo António in mid-August 2014.
The figures compiled by the National Maritime Authority showed only one fatality at a beach that was supervised by lifeguards - the sudden death of an 86-year old man at São Martinho near Nazaré.
The remaining six cases were at unsupervised beaches and all but one, a 63-year old Russian man, were Portuguese nationals – five men and one woman.
In 2013 a five-year-old British boy drowned in a swimming pool while on an Algarve family holiday.
The family were staying at a property on the outskirts of Armaçao de Pêra, Silves and despite efforts to revive the boy, and the expert attention of the emergency services, he died at the scene on August 21, 2013.
