Giant wave swallows beachgoers in Bangui

BANGUI, Ilocos Norte, Oct. 13– A 17-year-old female college student of Mariano Marcos State University, Batac City main campus drowned when a giant sea wave rushed onshore and swallowed her and eight companions while they were having group picture taking near the coastline water off Brgy. Masikil, this town yesterday morning, police reported. The victim’s eight companions survived the tragedy.

Police Officer 2 Willie Agedan, investigator, said the lone fatality was identified as Chezka Agas, second year civil engineering student of MMSU and resident of Bacarra, Ilocos Norte. Her body was fished out later from the billowing seashore after the tragedy.

Witnesses said the victim’s companions, all fellow students, were rescued by responding members of BPAT (Barangay Peacekeeping Action Team). One of the survivors, a certain male companion identified as Edgar Abian, native of Brgy. Sta. Ana, Solsona, Ilocos Norte, is now being treated and confined at the Bangui District Hospital here under observation.

Still under the state of shock, Hazel Diaz, one of the survivors, narrated to reporters how the giant sea wave suddenly attacked and swallowed them while they were taking group pictures near the shoreline. Police investigators said the group attended earlier a birthday party of a classmate from Bangui. Early morning, they went to the beach off Brgy. Masikil here for sight-seeing and picture taking. In one angle, they took some photos of themselves using the famous giant Bangui North Windmill as view background.

With no apparent sign of approaching danger, they posed at another angle near the shoreline when the monster surge swallowed them at the click of a second, said another survivor.

At press time, many MMSU students, friends and relatives conveyed their messages of condolence and sympathy to the bereaved family as posted at the Facebook wall of the victim Chezka Tadlas Agas. (theo s. guiang w/ reports from abs-cbn tv patrol ilocos, gma balitang ilokano & bombo-laoag)