A day at the beach turned tragic when a 17-year-old boy was killed after a sand tunnel he was digging abruptly collapsed, burying him alive.
The teen, identified as Riccardo Boni by several Italian media outlets, was vacationing in Montalto di Castro, Italy, with his family when the incident occurred on Thursday, July 10.
Boni's family was staying at a resort in Montalto di Castro, approximately 70 miles north of Rome. The collapse happened around 3:00 p.m. local time while he was on the beach with his father and siblings.
According to local outlet Corriere della Sera, Riccardo Boni and his younger siblings had moved closer to the shoreline, where they began digging a large hole that was reportedly nearly five feet deep, in a more secluded area of the beach. Meanwhile, their father was nearby, dozing off under a beach umbrella.
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Suddenly, the walls of the tunnel gave way, trapping the teen beneath the sand, the outlet reported.
The boy remained buried until his father woke up and realized his oldest son was missing. One of his brothers cried out, "Riccardo is under the sand," according to The Sun. The siblings pointed to the location of the collapsed tunnel, prompting their father and nearby beachgoers to rush over and frantically dig in search of him.
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Tragically, the boy was found buried in the sand, unresponsive and showing no signs of life. First responders arrived within minutes, including an air ambulance, working to revive him, but it was too late, and the boy could not be saved, the outlet reported.
"No-one realized what had happened," Lieutenant Daniele Tramontana, the Carabiniere officer leading the police investigation, told The Sun.
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"They lost a lot of time because they couldn’t see him. When they realized he was missing they began to look for him but it was too late," he continued.
A witness on the beach told Corriere della Serra that "no one on the beach had heard the teenager screaming because he was completely buried within minutes."
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A police investigation has since been opened "against persons unknown" in connection with the fatal accident, the outlet added, as authorities consider whether an autopsy will be required.
"I have spoken to colleagues, and we have never heard of anything like this happening before in Italy," Tramontana said. "We deal with terrible situations all the time, but we can't imagine how a game on the beach ended up this way."
