Warning to tourists after tragic family deaths on Portuguese beach

Published on 23/08/2012 04:51

Holidaymakers have been urged to stick to beaches patrolled by lifeguards after a five-year-old girl and her grandfather drowned off a “dangerous” stretch of the Portuguese coast.

Fishermen recovered the bodies of Lara Lewis and Brian O’Dwyer, 66, from choppy waters near the holiday resort of Nazare, around 60 miles north of Lisbon.

It is thought Lara was walking with her grandparents along a sandy beach when they were all dragged into the sea by powerful waves.

Her grandmother was rescued off Salgado beach by local seamen and she was taken to hospital.

Lara’s parents, Philip Lewis, a professor at University College London, and Sian Lewis, are believed to have been sunbathing in the picturesque fishing village when the incident happened at around 2pm on Tuesday.

Neighbours of the Lewis’s home in Hackney, east London, described them as a “happy and loving” family. Family members at the house said they were too upset to speak.

Jorge Barroso, mayor of Nazare municipality, said: “The accident happened on a beach with a sea considered very dangerous and in an area without

surveillance.”