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A 35-year-old man has died at a popular central Queensland tourist beach, bringing the number of drownings in Australia this summer to 23.
Emergency services were called to Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island after the Irish national was found unresponsive in the water about 11am on Wednesday.
Beachgoers said they were kept clear of the area while the man’s body was recovered, with police confirming he died at the scene, and that they were preparing a report for the coroner.
The 35-year-old Irish national died at Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island.Credit: Catherine Strohfeldt
The exact circumstances of the man’s death were unknown.
Famous for its white sand, Whitehaven Beach, in the Whitsunday Islands National Park, is accessible only by boat, and is estimated to attract between 7000 and 8000 visitors per year.
Royal Life Saving Australia has so far recorded 22 drowning deaths for the 2025-26 summer, not including the 35-year-old found on Wednesday.
In Queensland, five people have drowned, placing it in equal second place with NSW.
The largest number of deaths occurred in Western Australia, where six drownings were recorded.
At the same time in the 2024-25 summer, 42 people had drowned – 20 more than the current toll – and across the past five years, 36 people had drowned between the start of summer and January 1.
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On Thursday in NSW, three people were feared dead after rough swells closed almost 70 beaches, most of them around Sydney.
In the early hours of Thursday, a woman was pulled from the water at Dunbogan Beach, near Port Macquarie on the NSW central coast, and was unable to be revived by paramedics.
A second woman, aged 25, died at Sydney’s Maroubra Beach after she was struck by a wave and dragged out to sea about 4am on New Year’s Day. She was believed to be a Chinese national, but was yet to be formally identified.
In a separate incident, also in Sydney’s south-west, three people were caught in large swells off Coogee Beach.
Two were rescued by off-duty lifesavers, but a man in his 20s was unable to be pulled in.
Emergency services continued to search into Thursday evening, but rescue and recovery efforts were disrupted by wild sea conditions.
In Queensland, another man died earlier in the week as heavy rains dumped upwards of 1100 millimetres in some of the heaviest hit regions, just north of Townsville, between December 28 and 31.
The man, in his 70s, was driving near Normanton when his vehicle was overwhelmed by floodwater.
He was discovered on Tuesday, and police deemed his death as not suspicious.
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