Fatal drownings on the 280 kilometers of beaches in Catalonia, from north to south, occur throughout the bathing season, from mid-June to the end of September. Despite the resources invested in prevention, self-protection campaigns, lifeguarding, surveillance, and rescues, mortality on the beaches due to drownings in the sea has become chronic. Between 20 and 25 bathers die drowned each summer. In the last six bathing seasons (2021-2026), a total of 129 people went for a dip on a Catalan beach but never returned.
Read more The unions start the school year on strike and predict a stormy autumn
So far this summer, 21 bathers have died drowned in the sea. Six more died before June 15. The latest victim, a Frenchman who drowned on Wednesday in Tossa de Mar (La Selva).
A complex reality, in a context with increasingly hotter summers each year and therefore more bathers on the beaches, with multiple individual dramas and a majority profile of the drowned in the sea: men over 65 years old.
The second risk group is young people (up to 30 years old), who often expose themselves to risky situations.
The figures, collected and analyzed by Civil Protection of the Generalitat, are cold but significant. Looking further back, since 2014, when drowning data began to be recorded in a unified way, the number of deaths is similar. “Since it is a drip, infernal, it is more diluted and does not create as much social alarm. But we have no other risk in Catalonia with such a high number of fatalities, year after year,” emphasizes Joan Ramon Cabello, Deputy Director of Prevention of Civil Protection of the Generalitat.
The goal of the plan, with the involvement also of lifeguards and the SEM, is to reduce the victims: 21 this summer
It is also necessary to take into account injured bathers, some seriously, who are rescued alive or resuscitated on the sand. So far this summer, 34 injured. Also, drowned bathers before and after summer must be added, when there is no surveillance on the beaches: 13 victims in 2025, 6 so far in 2026, awaiting what happens after September 15, when lifeguards are withdrawn.
There is no resignation to the chronic nature of the problem. With the intention of seeking improvements and proposing new actions, Civil Protection is leading a working group where all the involved actors are present: companies dedicated to providing surveillance and lifeguard services on the beaches, a competence of each town hall (70 coastal municipalities in Catalonia); lifeguard professionals and the Catalan federation; the Medical Emergency Service (SEM); Firefighters and Mossos d’Esquadra.
The goal of the plan, with the participation also of some of the municipalities that are working best and the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, is to reduce the number of victims. “We do not resign ourselves, we have to attack it by land, sea, and air. It is very important to us, for this reason we allocate so many resources. We give it first-order importance,” highlights Cabello (Civil Protection).
The coordinated work, which began in 2023 and has been reactivated this year, is facing one of the most complex challenges: the standardization of the surveillance and lifeguard service on the beaches. It is about agreeing on basic criteria to have a reference regarding the number of lifeguards or surveillance towers needed to monitor a certain number of meters of beach or the lifeguard service hours, among other aspects. A guide to then adapt infrastructures, resources, and personnel locally.
The pace of work and the degree of understanding among the different parties involved is good, and it is expected that this fall the basic criteria will already be defined. Now it is a municipal competence, a very delicate responsibility that town halls must face, with varying sizes, resources, and kilometers of beaches. There is currently no common regulation for all municipalities that governs a service that town halls award each summer to half a dozen specialized companies and institutions, such as the Red Cross.
Read more The major case against the Chinese mafia ends with 64 plea bargains to avoid prison
Basic criteria in consensus phase, schedules, number of lifeguards or surveillance posts on beaches
“Beach surveillance is still governed by a state law from the 1970s. Some companies work well and others not so much. Lifeguards arrive from other parts of the state with qualifications that are not valid to work in Catalonia,” warns Albert Calabuig, former president of AECSA (the Catalan association of aquatic rescue), with 50 years of experience. “There are beaches with more than a kilometer between surveillance towers, which is intolerable. We keep tempting fate,” he adds.
The degree of sensitivity of each town hall, whether it has suffered more or fewer drownings or the municipal budget marks the volume of resources dedicated. “There is a lack of territorial vision and the establishment of standardized parameters,” emphasizes Pablo Martín Epifanio (URV), an expert in aquatic lifeguard projects.
The new regulation, when approved by the Generalitat based on the criteria now under development, must be complied with by all municipalities with beaches. It will also be necessary to define how to support town halls so that they gradually adapt to the legal framework. The idea is to help them with subsidies. “If we increase the number of professionals dedicated to rescue, we will surely manage to prevent more deaths,” says Cabello (Civil Protection).
Another factor to consider is that with the climate emergency and increasingly hotter summers each year, the number of bathers on the beaches has not stopped growing. If temperatures continue to rise, the forecast points to more intensive use of the sands and the sea, whether on the Costa Brava, the Costa Daurada, or the Barcelona coast. Civil Protection has found that many drownings occur during heat waves.
Although there are no data on the volume of bathers, the increase in beach users is one of the factors when analyzing the chronic nature. “It is a statistical matter, the more vulnerable people you have in bathing areas, the more likely an accident will occur. But we do not resign ourselves to deaths; if work is done, it can improve. Bathers have increased, but deaths remain stable,” explains Cabello.
“The more vulnerable people you have in bathing areas, the more likely an accident will occur”
The Costa Brava, with 51 drowned bathers, and the Costa Daurada (49), concentrate 78% of the victims; this is attributed to the higher influx of bathers in two areas of great tourist impact. The Barcelona coast recorded a total of 28 deaths in the same period (2021-26).
The highest risk group, the elderly, is the most concerning. The analysis of data from the last six summers is conclusive. Of the 129 people who died from drowning in the sea since 2021 in Catalonia, almost 60%, a total of 76 bathers, were over 65 years old. The vast majority (102), 79%, were men.
Many were people with previous pathologies or who were overconfident because they knew the beach well. Heat, due to dizziness or fainting, is another factor. Although when children and adolescents drown in the sea it has a huge social impact, as happened in June in Tarragona, only 5% of the fatal victims (2021-26) were minors.
A public health problem affecting the entire Spanish coast
Although not all autonomous communities invest the same resources to promote prevention or reinforce surveillance and lifeguarding on the beaches, it is a problem that occurs along the entire peninsular coast: 241 people died drowned on Spanish beaches in 2025, according to the National Drowning Report (INA), which points to “a public health problem.” The Royal Spanish Federation of Rescue and Lifeguarding warns of “a decade in red (2015-25), the consolidation of the drowning crisis in Spain.” Andalusia, with 500 kilometers of beaches (almost double that of Catalonia), was the autonomous community with the most deaths (81) in 2025. The figure includes all aquatic environments: besides beaches, with the majority of accidents, inland waters (reservoirs or rivers) and pools (private and public). In Catalonia, four bathers drowned in inland waters and four more in pools in the summer of 2025. Adding beaches, 41 people drowned in aquatic environments.
The figure has skyrocketed this year in pools, with 11 deaths (7 were over 65 years old), more than half in July.
Besides improving beach surveillance, for Civil Protection there is another major strategic line: strengthening the culture of self-protection among bathers through information and awareness campaigns aimed at the entire population, with special attention to risk groups. The Generalitat is already working on a major campaign for next year.
Read more From the stifling summer of ’26 to the explosive one of ’27
