Irish tourist (40s) drowns in swimming pool in Spain’s Costa Dorada

Emergency responders raced to the holiday apartment block in La Pineda near the east coast city of Tarragona after the alarm was raised at around 11am this morning.

They tried to revive the man on arrival at the scene but could do nothing to save him and he was pronounced dead before his body was removed for a post-mortem examination.

Police sources confirmed the dead man was Irish and was aged in his 40s.

The pool where he drowned was part of an apartment complex five minutes from the beach called Apartments Pineda Park.

A spokesman for the regional Mossos d’Esquadra police force said: “There is nothing at this stage to suggest this man’s death was the result of a crime and it is being treated as accidental.”

The unnamed holidaymaker is said to have been staying in the area with relatives.

It was not immediately clear this afternoon if his family witnessed the drowning.

The five-floor holiday apartment block where the tragedy occurred describes itself online as “ideal for the accommodation of families with children and couples who want to spend a vacation on the Costa Dorada, where the best beaches on the Mediterranean coast are located”.

It is five minutes by car from the Port Aventura theme park.

Staff declined to comment this afternoon “out of respect for the dead man’s family”.

The Costa Dorada, which translates as the Golden Coast in English, is a strip of Mediterranean coastline in Spain’s Catalonia region southwest of Barcelona.

La Pineda, between Tarragona and the lively town of Salou, is famed for its large sandy beach which makes it particularly popular for family tourism.

In June an Irish seven-year-old died in hospital two days after being pulled from her hotel pool in Majorca and revived before being rushed to an intensive care unit.

The girl had been staying with her family at the four-star HYB Eurocalas Hotel in the east coast resort of Calas de Mallorca.

On June 5 six-year-old Corey Aughey from north Belfast died in hospital after falling into the swimming pool of the hotel where he was staying with his family in the Majorcan resort of Sa Coma near the Love Island villa.

On May 25 British toddler Freddie Joseph Briggs drowned in a pool at his parents’ home in the village of Aigues near Benidorm, leading the local council to declare three days of mourning.