Trapped by the current generated by the baïnes, the swimmers were carried about 800 meters offshore, before being rescued by jet skis and helicopters.
The prefecture of Nouvelle-Aquitaine had warned the local population: the risk of formation of baïnes was particularly important on the coast. These seemingly innocuous natural pools form between the coast and a sandbank and create strong currents out to sea. At the beginning of the evening this Saturday, August 20, 16 bathers from the Grande Plage in Biarritz were swept away. According to France 3, the swimmers moved away about 800 meters from the coast.
Most of them were immediately rescued by the lifeguards (MNS) on jet skis while others were airlifted by the gendarmes, specify our colleagues. More fear than harm for the unwary, since they were taken out of the water at stage 1 of drowning, under stress and fatigue, but without inhaling water.
A particularly dangerous phenomenon
As of Friday, the prefecture of Nouvelle-Aquitaine had called on summer visitors to “swim only in supervised areas» Coastal beaches because of the risk of baïnes (“little bath” in Landes patois). “Swimming conditions will be particularly dangerous“, she had warned, given “the concordance of various phenomena: swell, onboard waves and strong currents“. Four departments had thus been placed on maximum alert: Charente-Maritime, Gironde, Landes and Pyrénées-Atlantiques.
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“Along the sandy Aquitaine coast, there is on average a baïne every 400 meters or so, i.e. nearly 600 baïnes in total“, which form a few months before summer, explains the Observatory of the coast of New Aquitaine in a video. These swimmer traps are responsible for several drownings every year.
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