Two fatal falls by tourists within a few hours caused great horror in Mallorca. The victims are a 34-year-old Brit and a 31-year-old Dutchman, the media reported on Friday, citing the police on the Spanish holiday island.
Both tragedies happened on Thursday and were due to “gross negligence”, wrote the regional newspaper “Diario de Mallorca”. The fatal falls were filmed by eyewitnesses and went viral on the internet. In the case of the Dutchman, the fall to his death was streamed live by his partner. The police in Palma confirmed the media reports on request.
The first fall happened on Thursday morning in Magaluf, west of the island’s capital, Palma. Video footage of passers-by shows a man tumbling around on the outside of hotel balconies on the seventh floor and eventually falling. Paramedics could only determine the death of the man.
Police suspect the man was under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Two women, who police found in the man’s room, said the Briton had behaved “strangely” just before the fall.
Only a few hours later, the second tragedy happened. The Dutchman died when he jumped off a 25-meter-high cliff into the sea on Malgrats Island off Santa Ponça in western Mallorca and crashed into a rock. The accident was filmed by the man’s partner from a boat and streamed live on the internet. According to media reports, the couple’s son, a small child, was also on board.
The body of the man was only found and recovered by police divers after some time in the sea, it said. According to the autopsy report published on Friday, the impact on the rocks was not fatal, as “Diario de Mallorca” reported. The Dutchman had probably become unconscious and drowned.
In Mallorca, it has happened again and again for years that tourists – mostly young men – die from drug intoxication or out of high spirits. The so-called balconing is notorious – tests of courage at often dizzying heights, in which one balances on balcony railings. The “Mallorca Zeitung” regretted in a comment on Friday that the prevention campaigns and the threatened fines had “so far not helped much”. (dpa)