Five young men, in their late teens and early twenties, all from Sri Lankan origin and living in south-east London, drowned in the sea at Camber Sands. Two of them are brothers. There were no lifeguards on the beach. The beach was very crowded as the weather was very hot.

Camber Sands is a beach at the village of Camber, near Rye, East Sussex, England. It is the only sand dune system in East Sussex, and is east of the estuary of the River Rother at Rye Bay stretching as one expanse beyond the Kent border, so can be read on Wikipedia.

This is a horrible tragedy, which we believe could have been prevented. We can imagine what families and friends of these young men have to go through. Reading news sites and other informative sites reveals a scenario which is not surprising to us.
 

1. Touristic sector is mainly interested in attracting tourists, when representing Camber Sands as the perfect get-away with unspoilt views of sand and sea stretching for miles....  Swimming, windsurfing, donkey rides, its children's area and its water sports area, are its advantages, so we can read here. The official tourism website for Hastings & 1066 Country only advises to check the local tide tables as the extensive shallows at low tide make for a very long walk before it is deep enough to swim. But this has nothing to do with water safety, it is only a practical issue. It also says there are no lifeguards or emergency facilities, but then it gives no information on sea safety except for the colors of the flags: red flag means  no swimming, orange flag means no inflatables. Tripadvisor titles "Camber Sands a lovely safe sandy beach", using 'safe' as a hollow word.   Calling Camber Sands a blue flag beach (which we read on different sites)  is meant only for promotional purpose, but has no informative value as it is not true. The most important criterion to get the Blue Flag label is the beach should be patrolled by lifeguards.
2. It looks like they were not swimming in the sea, as they were pulled from the sea wearing clothes appropriate for being at the beach for the day, meaning they were surprised by the extremely fast rising in of the tide. MailOnline writes they were playing football when they became trapped by the rapidly advancing tide. Within seconds two of the men were dragged into the quick-flowing water of a rip tide before the other three tried in vain to rescue them. To Sky News Mr. Ravi (brother of one of the victims) said: "They walked up to the ocean but a few minutes later the ocean came all the way back (in) so at that point they were feeling they were going to get drowned. From that point they tried to save themselves by swimming back - they are good swimmers - but the problem is the tide was strong so that they couldn't swim back. ... They were driven backwards because of water currents. Because of waves."
3. The area is known as dangerous to locals : "As someone who knows Camber well, it's been known for as long as I can remember, even as a child that as a Beach...lovely. As a place to go swimming...absolutely treacherous. People have fallen into mudflat holes and died, the current is horrendous and there are sand banks/sinkholes. " (is one of the comments). One can not expect these men, of Sri Lankan origin, and living in London, know these dangers, when no warnings or lifeguards or anyone for that matter tell them about these particular dangerous sea conditions at Camber Sands. Evenmore a petition had been set up in June to call for permanent lifeguards to be placed on Camber Sands. The petition had received more than 5000 signatures, but it was without result.
4. RNLI does not believe rip currents were responsible for the deaths, as the sea was so calm on that day. Although rip currents do occur at Camber. More likely sand-bars were involved. People can get caught on sand-bars, when the tide rushes in extremely fast, faster than someone could walk quickly. Because of the storms during the past weekend, the channels between the sand-bars have been made deeper. It is possible the men fell into these channels of water.
5. Incidents did happen before in the area. On 24/7, so only a month ago, a 19-year-old Brazilian died in the same area and two others had to be rescued after being caught by a tide and strong winds and a father and son got seriously injured in a jellyfish attack.

The sea conditions were clearly dangerous, even more on that day, local authorities should have known this, yet  there were no flags up on the beach suggesting it was unsafe to swim. No measures were taken to warn beachgoers. No lifeguards to save people in trouble. Always, when beaches are exploited and promoted to attract tourists, at least a proper risk assessment should be done; if they had done this before the incident, they might have taken safety measures, by blocking off this area of beach or by stationing lifeguards or putting up signs warning beachgoers.

And now? A temporary RNLI lifeguard service has been introduced to the beach for the remainder of the summer. On a long term the beach has been prioritised for inclusion in a national strategy aimed at making "high-risk" stretches of UK coastline safer. It needed the life of five young men to take action.