He was trying to dig a tunnel at the bottom of the hole more than five feet deep he had dug in the sand but the walls gave way, swallowing him.
This is how Riccardo Boni, the 17-year-old found buried yesterday afternoon on a beach in Montalto di Castro, in the Viterbo area, apparently died.
Riccardo had arrived with his family—father, mother, and three siblings (a 14-year-old sister and two brothers, ages 8 and 5)—at the California Campground in Montalto just two days ago. On the second day, tragedy struck. The 17-year-old allegedly left the protected beach to dig a hole in the adjacent public beach. The only witnesses to his fatal game were his younger siblings, who later wandered off.
It was one of them, a five-year-old, who reportedly warned the desperate mother searching for her missing son: "Riccardo is under the sand." A seemingly meaningless phrase, initially ignored, but ultimately led lifeguards, rescuers, and passersby to dig where he had been directed. The boy's few belongings lay nearby. For forty minutes, they tried to reach Riccardo, but by the time he was pulled from that deadly trap, it was too late.
One of the most likely hypotheses is that the 17-year-old, having reached a depth of over one and a half meters, decided to create a sort of tunnel, perhaps to connect to a hole he would later dig . But probably when he began digging horizontally , the sand gave way, overwhelming him while he was lying down, leaving him unable to get up.
Since yesterday evening, the body has been in the Montalto di Castro cemetery at the disposal of the Civitavecchia judicial authorities.
(Unioneonline)
