City of Cape Town ready for revellers at recreational facilities

The City of Cape Town’s social development and early childhood development department will be present at 16 beaches over the coming long weekend to prevent further drownings along the city’s coastline.

There have been five fatal drownings along the city’s coastline, eight non-fatal drownings and one non-fatal drowning at a city swimming pool since December 1.

“Between the resources we have in place at our recreational facilities, and the universal safety rules, it is possible that everyone can return home after a day in the sun, with nothing but a tan and good memories,” MMC for community services and health Patricia Van der Ross said on Thursday.

She asked visitors to take accountability for their personal safety, listen to lifeguards and other officials and have their children tagged with its Identikidz to keep them safe in the event that they got lost. Since the launch of the Identikidz project in the middle of the month, staff have tagged 53,766 children at participating beaches and have reunited 120 children with their families. 

The city said among the contributing factors to drownings were swimming outside the designated bathing areas, or outside the hours that lifeguards are on duty, getting caught in rip currents outside the designated bathing areas and impaired judgment.

“It bears repeating that our visitors should only swim where there are lifeguards on duty, and between the flags set up on the beach. Please leave the alcohol at home as this impairs your judgment, and could have dire consequences,” Van der Ross said.

The city encouraged parents to make use of the Identikidz service which stores the parents' contact details and the child is issued with a waterproof wristband containing a unique number that can be matched to their parent’s contact details in the event that they were lost.

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