07-05-2025
Chinese tourist drowns in Thailand after trying to retrieve trapped GoPro
A Chinese tourist has been filmed in her final moments before drowning while trying to retrieve a camera she dropped on a diving trip in Indonesia.
Zhang Xiaohan, 30, went scuba diving to admire the corals and marine life off the remote Kabakan Island in East Kalimantan on May 2.
However, the woman's GoPro camera she was using slipped from her hands as she was ascending almost eight metres through the waters.
The Chinese woman was said to have defied her tour guide's warnings and plunged back into the sea to collect the gadget.
She battled and tried to drag herself up the depths but was washed away by fast-flowing currents.
Indonesian tour guide Willy said the group waited for several minutes for Zhang to resurface before they reported her missing at 9am local time, as reported by Asia Pacific Press.
Rescue teams, the local marine search agency Basarnas and soldiers were dispatched to comb the sea around Kakaban Island.
After repeated diving attempts, the holidaymaker's body was found 88 metres below the surface, near the popular Kelapa Dua diving route, at 2:55pm on Saturday, May 3.
Tragically, Zhang had posted a video a few days earlier showing a fellow diver struggling through the rip tides.
She wrote: 'Strong current, but I'm faster.'
Endrow Sasmita, operations chief of the local Basarnas, said search teams recovered Zhang's body in an area mush deeper than where she had gone missing.
He said: 'A team of divers from the joint SAR unit was deployed and managed to locate the victim at a depth of 87 meters, but initial attempts to retrieve her were unsuccessful due to the extreme depth.
'The search location was challenging. Fortunately, unified support from all parties helped us find her.'
Zhang's body was taken to the Abdul Rivai General Hospital in Berau for a post-mortem examination.
Indonesia's beaches, though stunning, pose several dangers including strong rip currents, rogue waves, and unpredictable tides that can make swimming perilous, especially for inexperienced swimmers.
In August last year, university professor Dr James Hou Fu Liu, 62, from New Zealand drowned while snorkelling off a beach in Indonesia.
While in September 2024, Colleen Monfore, 68, from South Dakota, was dragged away by the strong currents around Pulau Reong island off the coast of the country's Southwest Maluku Regency.
She was believed to have been eaten by sharks before the remains of her body surfaced.
