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More Lives Lost On The Central Coast


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Search continues during night for 4 missing fishers MARTIN DINNEEN, MATT CARR AND ELLIE HARVEY

May 11, 2010

A WOMAN has died and grave fears are held for four people after an apparent rock-fishing accident south of Newcastle.

Police found the woman's body on rocks about five kilometres south of Catherine Hill Bay about 4pm yesterday. She is believed to be one of five Sydney anglers who failed to return from a fishing trip in the area on Sunday.

Police earlier said they were searching for two couples, a 58-year-old woman and a 56-year-old man from North Rocks, and a 63-year-old man and a 61-year-old woman from Carlingford, who had gone fishing together. Police said the group might have included a 25-year-old Carlingford man, believed to be the older couple's son.

Relatives raised the alarm early yesterday when the group failed to return. An alert was issued for police to keep a lookout in the Catherine Hill Bay area. The group's car was found in a beachside car park in the afternoon.

A family friend, Vincent Chan, drove to the scene from Carlingford last night.

Mr Chan said he had fished with the group in the area many times. ''We've been coming here for years and it's never been dangerous,'' he said.

They never fished in the ocean but in an inlet in a rock platform, he said. ''Where we always fished it is safe and we always go to the same place.''

But the secretary of the NSW branch of the Australian National sportfishing Association, Yanko Serifi, said it was an area only used by ''diehard'' rockfishermen.

''For the life of me I can't understand what they're doing out there,'' Mr Serifi said.

He described Flat Bed Rock, south of Catherine Hill Bay, as ''a narrow stretch of rock that probably stretches out about six or seven hundred metres out into the ocean''.

''It's a very dangerous platform because it's exposed to all the swells [from different directions],'' Mr Serifi said. ''I can't understand why they were there in such huge seas.''

He said the area was quite secluded and there was a life-saving device on the rock platform called an ''angel ring'', a stainless steel pole with a lifebuoy attached.

An air, land and sea search was launched yesterday afternoon but scaled down after dark. An NRMA CareFlight helicopter and two police boats continued searching late into the night.

The helicopter was using its night vision capabilities.

A CareFlight spokesman, Don Kemble, said the helicopter had joined the search about 7pm.

''We're fairly unique in that regard in that we're able to search at night at low level,'' Mr Kemble said. ''[The technology] means they can basically see like daylight.''

The area is regarded as one of the region's deadliest fishing spots. Yesterday's accident was the ninth reported there in less than two years.

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