November 2010 (ROTM #23) Haeundae Beach, South Korea

A few months ago, I started to notice a large number of hits to my rip current YouTube video. I traced them to a newspaper article from the Korean Times which reported a mass rescue in a rip current in a popular beach resort region of South Korea. The article can be viewed at https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2010/08/117_70600.html

 I had no idea rips were an issue in South Korea and this picture is amazing. You can clearly see the rip from the amount of people on inflatable rafts who were carried along the beach in the feeder current and out in the rip itself! We know very little about rip currents in Asian and South-east Asian countries, but they are clearly a global hazard.

Rubber rafts in a rip are a one way ticket offshore