BREAKING NEWS Horror as boy, 17, suffocates to death on Italian beach after being buried alive under sand when tunnel he dug collapsed on top of him
The 17-year-old, named locally as Riccardo B., was on holiday with his family when tragedy struck on the popular Montalto di Castro beach, near the border of the Tarquinia region in north-west Italy.
Riccardo had been playing in the sand, carving out a tunnel that he intended to crawl through from one side to the other.
But as he passed through the centre, the structure gave way without warning, swallowing him whole and leaving no trace on the surface.
A swimmer who witnessed the horror said: 'He had built a tunnel. He wanted to enter from one side and exit from the other.
'But as he passed through, when he reached the centre, everything collapsed and the hole was completely covered.
'You couldn't see anything anymore; you could have walked right through it and not noticed a thing.
Another local added: 'When the sand closes in on you, it's incredibly heavy.
'It doesn't even let a little oxygen in, and it's not easy to extract people because it tends to collapse. A few minutes later, they die of suffocation.'
His father, along with beachgoers and lifeguards, began frantically digging through the sand, clawing at it with their bare hands as emergency services rushed to the scene.
By the time emergency services reached the scene, Ricardo had already died.
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