Sydney, Jan 1 Two women have drowned in separate accidents in the northeastern Australian state of Queensland.
Queensland Police said on Wednesday that a woman who went missing while floating down a river northwest of Brisbane on Tuesday has been found dead.
The 53-year-old woman fell into fast-moving water at about 2:30 pm local time and did not resurface, triggering a search operation involving a helicopter, drone and water rescue crews.
She was found dead on Wednesday afternoon. Queensland Police said the death is being treated as non-suspicious.
Earlier on Wednesday, a woman died in a scuba diving incident, Xinhua news agency reported.
A spokesperson for the Queensland Ambulance Service said that five crews were sent to Wave Break Island, a popular swimming, snorkeling and diving spot 60 km southeast of Brisbane, after the woman was pulled unresponsive from the ocean at about 10:10 am.
Ambulance crews treated the woman but she was declared dead at the scene.
More than 30 people have drowned across Australia since the start of summer on December 1, according to data from Royal Life Saving Australia.
On Monday, a man had drowned in Canberra's south, taking Australia's national drowning death toll for December to 32.
Police in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) on Monday confirmed the death of a 21-year-old man who went missing while swimming in a river in southern Canberra on Sunday evening.
Emergency services were called to the scene at about 6 pm local time on Sunday when the man failed to resurface, a police statement said.
A search was launched and his body was found in the water by divers from the Australian Federal Police shortly before 8 pm.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that a member of the public attempted to save the 21-year-old but could not find him in the water.
The monthly drowning death toll is equal to that in the same period of 2023, but is slightly higher than the long-term average.
Royal Life Saving Australia earlier in December warned that the period between Christmas Day and New Year's Day is the deadliest time of year for drowning in Australia.
It said that 26 percent of all drowning deaths in the summer of 2023-24 occurred in that period.
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor