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CostaBlancaPeople 15th - 21st May 2018
Man-o-war invasion-118KM OF BEACHES CLOSED Huge stretches of beach in the Alicante province remained closed to bathers this weekend due to the threat of a recent influx of Portuguese man-o-war. An 11 year old child was hospitalised due to being stung by a‘carabela’as they are known in Spanish – a marine animal often referred to as the ‘floating terror’ such is the severity of its sting. The child was swimming off a La Marina beach, (where the green flag was flying), when he was stung and later brought to Elche hospital. Beaches up and down the Alicante coastline remained closed throughout the weekend with the red flag and jellyfish warning flag flying
to keep swimmers safely out of the water. The Portuguese mano-war is often referred to as a jellyfish but in actual fact it is not a true jellyfish. Jellyfish are single organisms while the man-o-war is a colonial organism made up of several animals. In the south Costa Blanca and Costa Calida, the red flag remained in place throughout Sunday and into Monday and while the Costa Blanca People was going to press on Monday, swimming was still prohibited in many areas of the coast. The popular beaches of Guardamar and La Mata were among the first to be closed for swimming.
The only beaches along the Elche coastline to remain open on Sunday for a few hours were those of La Marina, however halfway through Sunday afternoon, a Portuguese man-owar stung an eleven year old boy who was playing by the shoreline. The red flag was immediately hoisted and as the boy was brought to Elche hospital for treatment, the order to close soon spread to the remainder of Elche’s beaches. It was the boy’s mother who raised the alarm to lifeguards present on the beach. The lifeguards, wearing protective gloves, managed to detach some of the tentacles from the
child’s arm but as the boy began to feel stomach and neck pain, it was decided to transfer him to Elche General Hospital. Currently, Elche beaches only provide a lifeguard service at weekends so it is widely thought that the red flag will fly all week along that particular stretch of coast. Beaches in the Vega Baja region will likely remain closed for the first half of this week, with several ‘men-o-war’ spotted off the coast of La Mata, Orihuela Costa and in Pilar de la Horadada on Sunday. Orihuela’s Councillor for Beaches, Luise Boné advised “extreme caution”.
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