A 40-year-old Perth woman has died after being swept off rocks at Salmon Beach near Esperance on Western Australia’s south coast.
WA Police say the woman was visiting the area when she was swept off the rocks just after 11am on Saturday.
Witnesses told ABC News that the woman was taking photographs at the time with a man believed to be her husband. She was pulled from the water and attempts were made to revive her but she was pronounced dead at the scene. Police will prepare a report for the coroner.
It is the 18th drowning death since 2001 along the Esperance coastline where people have been swept into the water from rocks, according to Royal Life Saving WA.
A local fisherman, who asked not to be named, said he saw the couple walk toward the edge of the shelf and later saw the woman’s husband running to retrieve the flotation device anchored to the rocks.
“He was bolting, and he looked to be in a panic,” the fisherman told ABC. “The waves weren’t huge but there was a stiff southerly which was creating a lot of chop right at the edge of the shelf.”
The fisherman said it was not uncommon for tourists in particular to edge out toward the end of the rock shelf. “I don’t know what else we can do here, there’s signs everywhere you look,” he said. “We tell them, but they either ignore us or we cop a mouthful of abuse.”
The tragedy is the second death at Salmon Beach since 2020, when 32-year-old tourist Faycal Al Saidi was swept off rocks. His body was never recovered and an inquest held in 2022 found he had drowned.
