A total of 47 people died due to drowning in the Valencia Community during 2016, according to a National Report prepared by the Royal Spanish Federation of Rescue and First Aid.
This figure signifies eight more deaths in the autonomy than in 2015 (39), which represents 10.8 percent of the total number drowned in Spain.
The Community of Valencia now figures as the fourth region with the highest number of victims after the Canary Islands, Galicia and Andalusia. In the country as a whole, the number of people who died by drowning rose to 437.
The number exceeds 22 people died from this cause last year, which means an increase of 5.03 percent in relation to 2015.
The profile of the victims is male (80% of all cases), Spanish nationality (70%), over 45 years of age (61.2%), drownings on a beach (51.7%), no lifeguards (86%), between 10am and 6pm (56.5%).
Only four months registered fewer deaths in 2016 than in the previous year. They were July, with thirty less, October, which showed a decrease of twenty-four deaths. In August there were ten less, and in September there was a decrease of eleven.
It should be noted that the increase in deaths in the year as a whole has occurred despite the sharp decline in the two main months of use of aquatic spaces, July and August, in which deaths decreased by almost 26 percent, falling to 115 in 2016 compared to 155 in the previous year.
In the other eight months of the year there were more fatalities than in the previous year, with May being the most significant, where there were 29 more deaths, and January where there was an increase of 20. In June there were 13 more deaths, ten in February and April, nine In December, four in November and two in March.
By Community, the Canary Islands suffered the largest number of drownings with 71, followed by Galicia with 69, Andalusia (66), Comunitat Valencia (47), Balearic Islands (37), Castile and Leon (31), Catalonia (30), Basque Country (18), Aragon (12) and the Murcia Region (11).
There were only 9 deaths in Asturias, Castilla-La Mancha (8), Extremadura (7), Cantabria (6), Ceuta and Melilla, with four in each.
