Brit tourist fighting for life after horror balcony fall in holiday hotspot
A British tourist is fighting for his life in Ayia Napa after falling ten metres from his hotel balcony.
The 24-year-old fell on Sunday at around 8pm and was initially rushed to the Famagusta hospital in Paralimni, but was urgently transferred to Nicosia general hospital - the largest in Cyrpus. Doctors say he is in 'serious' condition and police have launched an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the incident.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
22 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Pepper in England training squad for France match
Guy Pepper is yet to earn a full international cap [Getty Images] Uncapped flanker Guy Pepper has been named in England's 36-player training squad for the match against a France XV at Allianz Stadium Twickenham on Saturday. The 22-year-old, who has trained with England in the past, was player of the match as Bath beat Leicester 23-21 on Saturday to lift their first Premiership title in 29 years. Advertisement England head coach Steve Borthwick has named nine other players who featured in the final, including try scorers Max Ojomoh of Bath and Leicester's Jack van Poortvliet. Although Bath flanker Sam Underhill has been selected, he is serving the final match of a four-game ban for a dangerous tackle. Ben Curry, Fraser Dingwall, George Furbank and Harry Randall are absent as they are recovering from injuries. Players selected for the British and Irish Lions tour of Australia have not been included. Borthwick will announce his touring squad for the summer Tests against Argentina and the USA on 23 June. England training squad Forwards Fin Baxter (Harlequins), Arthur Clark (Gloucester Rugby), Alex Coles (Northampton Saints), Chandler Cunningham-South (Harlequins), Theo Dan (Saracens), Trevor Davison (Northampton Saints), Alex Dombrandt (Harlequins), Charlie Ewels (Bath Rugby), Jamie George (Saracens), Joe Heyes (Leicester Tigers), Ted Hill (Bath Rugby), Nick Isiekwe (Saracens), Manny Iyogun (Northampton Saints), Jack Kenningham (Harlequins), Curtis Langdon (Northampton Saints), Asher Opoku-Fordjour (Sale Sharks), Guy Pepper (Bath Rugby), Bevan Rodd (Sale Sharks), Sam Underhill (Bath Rugby), Tom Willis (Saracens). Advertisement Backs Charlie Atkinson (Gloucester Rugby), Seb Atkinson (Gloucester Rugby), Oscar Beard (Harlequins), Joe Carpenter (Sale Sharks), Immanuel Feyi-Waboso (Exeter Chiefs), George Ford (Sale Sharks), Will Muir (Bath Rugby), Cadan Murley (Harlequins), Luke Northmore (Harlequins), Max Ojomoh (Bath Rugby), Raffi Quirke (Sale Sharks), Tom Roebuck (Sale Sharks), Henry Slade (Exeter Chiefs), Ben Spencer (Bath Rugby), Freddie Steward (Leicester Tigers), Jack van Poortvliet (Leicester Tigers).
New York Post
30 minutes ago
- New York Post
Spaniards use water pistols on visitors in Barcelona, Mallorca to protest mass tourism
BARCELONA, Spain — Protesters used water pistols against unsuspecting tourists in Barcelona and on the Spanish island of Mallorca on Sunday as demonstrators marched to demand a rethink of an economic model they believe is fueling a housing crunch and erasing the character of their hometowns. The marches were part of the first coordinated effort by activists concerned with the ills of overtourism across southern Europe's top destinations. While several thousands rallied in Mallorca in the biggest gathering of the day, hundreds more gathered in other Spanish cities, as well as in Venice, Italy, and Portugal's capital, Lisbon. 'The squirt guns are to bother the tourists a bit,' Andreu Martínez said in Barcelona with a chuckle after spritzing a couple seated at an outdoor café. 'Barcelona has been handed to the tourists. This is a fight to give Barcelona back to its residents.' 5 A protesters shooting a water gun at tourists in Barcelona, Spain on June 15, 2025. AP Photo/Pau Venteo Martínez, a 42-year-old administrative assistant, is one of a growing number of residents who are convinced that tourism has gone too far in the city of 1.7 million people. Barcelona hosted 15.5 million visitors last year eager to see Antoni Gaudí's La Sagrada Familia basilica and the Las Ramblas promenade. Martínez says his rent has risen over 30% as more apartments in his neighborhood are rented to tourists for short-term stays. He said there is a knock-on effect of traditional stores being replaced by businesses catering to tourists, like souvenir shops, burger joints and 'bubble tea' spots. 'Our lives, as lifelong residents of Barcelona, are coming to an end,' he said. 'We are being pushed out systematically.' Around 5,000 people gathered in Palma, the capital of Mallorca, with some toting water guns as well and chanting 'Everywhere you look, all you see are tourists.' The tourists who were targeted by water blasts laughed it off. The Balearic island is a favorite for British and German sun-seekers. It has seen housing costs skyrocket as homes are diverted to the short-term rental market. Hundreds more marched in Granada, in southern Spain, and in the northern city of San Sebastián, as well as the island of Ibiza. 5 Marchers near the Sagrada Familia basilica in Barcelona holding a banner that reads 'Decrease level of tourism now.' AP Photo/Pau Venteo In Venice, a couple of dozen protesters unfurled a banner calling for a halt to new hotel beds in the lagoon city in front of two recently completed structures, one in the popular tourist destination's historic center where activists say the last resident, an elderly woman, was kicked out last year. 'That's lovely' Protesters in Barcelona blew whistles and held up homemade signs saying 'One more tourist, one less resident.' They stuck stickers saying 'Citizen Self-Defense,' in Catalan, and 'Tourist Go Home,' in English, with a drawing of a water pistol on the doors of hotels and hostels. There was tension when the march stopped in front of a large hostel, where a group emptied their water guns at two workers positioned in the entrance. They also set off firecrackers next to the hostel and opened a can of pink smoke. One worker spat at the protesters as he slammed the hostel's doors. 5 A man pointing a water gun during the Barcelona protests against overtourism. AP Photo/Pau Venteo American tourists Wanda and Bill Dorozenski were walking along Barcelona's main luxury shopping boulevard where the protest started. They received a squirt or two, but she said it was actually refreshing given the 83 degree Fahrenheit (28.3 degrees Celsius) weather. 'That's lovely, thank you sweetheart,' Wanda said to the squirter. 'I am not going to complain. These people are feeling something to them that is very personal, and is perhaps destroying some areas (of the city).' There were also many marchers with water pistols who didn't fire at bystanders and instead solely used them to spray themselves to keep cool. Crackdown on Airbnb Cities across the world are struggling with how to cope with mass tourism and a boom in short-term rental platforms, like Airbnb, but perhaps nowhere has surging discontent been so evident as in Spain, where protesters in Barcelona first took to firing squirt guns at tourists during a protest last summer. There has also been a confluence of the pro-housing and anti-tourism struggles in Spain, whose 48 million residents welcomed record 94 million international visitors in 2024. When thousands marched through the streets of Spain's capital in April, some held homemade signs saying 'Get Airbnb out of our neighborhoods.' Spanish authorities are striving to show they hear the public outcry while not hurting an industry that contributes 12% of gross domestic product. Last month, Spain's government ordered Airbnb to remove almost 66,000 holiday rentals from the platform that it said had violated local rules. 5 A person wears a t shirt with the message reading 'Neighborhood auto defense – Tourists go home' in Barcelona. AP Photo/Pau Venteo Spain's Consumer Rights Minister Pablo Bustinduy told The Associated Press shortly after the crackdown on Airbnb that the tourism sector 'cannot jeopardize the constitutional rights of the Spanish people,' which enshrines their right to housing and well-being. Carlos Cuerpo, the economy minister, said in a separate interview that the government is aware it must tackle the unwanted side effects of mass tourism. The boldest move was made by Barcelona's town hall, which stunned Airbnb and other services who help rent properties to tourists by announcing last year the elimination of all 10,000 short-term rental licenses in the city by 2028. That sentiment was back in force on Sunday, where people held up signs saying 'Your Airbnb was my home.' 5 A march against tourism in Palma de Mallorca on June 15, 2025. Photo by JAIME REINA/AFP via Getty Images 'Taking away housing' The short-term rental industry, for its part, believes it is being treated unfairly. 'I think a lot of our politicians have found an easy scapegoat to blame for the inefficiencies of their policies in terms of housing and tourism over the last 10, 15, 20 years,' Airbnb's general director for Spain and Portugal, Jaime Rodríguez de Santiago recently told the AP. That argument either hasn't trickled down to the ordinary residents of Barcelona, or isn't resonating. Txema Escorsa, a teacher in Barcelona, doesn't just oppose Airbnb in his home city, he has ceased to use it even when traveling elsewhere, out of principle. 'In the end, you realize that this is taking away housing from people,' he said.
Daily Mirror
32 minutes ago
- Daily Mirror
Air India crash investigators' findings that could solve mystery of last seconds
Investigators could be a step closer to unravelling the mystery of the tragic Air India Flight 171 disaster, with a vitally important tool pulled from the rubble set to help the team piece together the victims' final moments The team investigating the disaster of Air India Flight 171 have recovered an item which could prove to be an essential piece of the puzzle. On Thursday, June 12, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner bound for London crashed into a medical college in a residential area, shortly after taking off in the city of Ahmedabad, Western India. Over the weekend, 270 bodies were recovered from the crash site, which was strewn with rubble and burnt-out wreckage. It's thought that 241 of the deceased had been passengers and members of the cabin crew, a number which included at least 50 British nationals. It's believed the remainder of the casualties had been inside the doctors' hostel or on the ground nearby when the plane went down. Incredibly, one British passenger on the London-bound plane, 40-year-old Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, managed to walk away from the wreckage with relatively minor injuries, with his testimony offering a chilling insight into the horror that unfolded inside the doomed aircraft. Now, experts believe they could be a step closer to unravelling the mystery of what happened in the sky that day after recovering the cockpit voice recorder (CVR). As previously reported by BBC News, the CVR captures audio from inside the cockpit, including conversations between pilots, alarms and ambient sounds. We know that Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, who heroically diverted his plane into a patch of grassland, sent out an emergency 'Mayday' signal shortly before the fiery collision. Now, the CVR could shed some light on what exactly prompted this final message. On Friday (June 13), the flight data recorder (FDR), which keeps a log of important flight parameters such as altitude, speed and engine performance, was pulled from the rubble. Collectively, the CVR and FDR form what is usually referred to as a plane's "black box". Crucial when it comes to investigating air crash disasters, these tools, which are designed to survive crashes, help investigators reconstruct the final moments before catastrophe and ultimately determine what went wrong. India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is now leading the inquiry into the cause of the tragedy, assisted by teams from the US and the UK. So far, more than 90 victims have been identified through DNA matching. However, the condition of the bodies, some of which have had to be painstakingly reconstructed, means some families may still have a while to wait before laying their loved ones to rest. Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, whose miraculous survival has made headlines, previously told the Hindustan Times: "When the flight took off, within five to 10 seconds it felt like it was stuck in the air. Suddenly, the lights started flickering – green and white – then the plane rammed into some establishment that was there." The 40-year-old London-based man, who'd been sitting in seat 11A next to an emergency exit, revealed that the section of the plane he was in landed on the ground, rather than hitting the roof of a building. Those on the other side would have been trapped. Vishwash explained: "When I saw the exit, I thought I could come out. I tried, and I did. Maybe the people who were on the other side of the plane weren't able to." He added, "I don't know how I survived. I saw people dying in front of my eyes – the air hostesses, and two people I saw near me … I walked out of the rubble."
