«If the sea swallows you in that bufadero, you have very few options to leave». Alejandra Verde knows very well the dangers hidden by Tancón Cave, on the same coast of the municipality of Santiago del Teide where he grew up. This woman from Santiago, an expert in communication and a resident of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, could tell about it. The 33-year-old Swiss Jasmine Ben Ali and the 27-year-old Italian Giovanni Rodríguez no. They are the two young men who died after drown on Thursday in El Tancón, a volcanic sea cave in which bathing is prohibited due to its high danger, as indicated by three fences in the area. In fact, Jasmine and Giovanni raised the fatalities from the past four years to six at this point.
Alejandra was 14 years old. He had gone with a group of friends. It was also August. While some had accessed the Tancón Cave through the horizontal entrance, a slit-shaped hole created by lava flows, others had gone to the second access, this vertical one, just a few meters away. They are known as siphons or siphons. This 5 meter deep natural chimney also leads into the cave and fills and empties with water depending on the waves and tides. “If the tide is low, you can jump in and enter the cave through the bottom of that hole of volcanic stones. But if the sea is rough or overflowing, you can have many difficulties, “he clarifies.
A few seconds late
“The problem was that I jumped a few seconds late, when the nozzle was starting to empty.” Alejandra was suddenly engulfed by water. «The suction force surprised me. He sucked me and led me to a kind of volcanic tube under the cave. I was trying to catch hold of the sharp walls but it was very difficult: the churning water shook me and threw me against the rocks ». Then, she steeled herself and tried to calm herself so as not to waste what little oxygen she had left. ‘He was perfectly aware that he could die. I grabbed the rocks with my nails and held my breath as long as I could. All around me were bubbles, foam, a strong movement before which I could do little … There was hardly any light ». A hand appeared. It was from a friend. Then another, from another of the friends who went to the Tancón. “When they took me out and I could finally breathe, the first thing we did was cry. I have not bathed in that cave again nor do I plan to do so in my life.
Jaime Coello, director of the Fundación Telesforo Bravo Juan Coello, has been warning of the serious risks of the Cueva del Tancón for a long time through the collective’s social networks. He calls it “mortal paradise.” «Paradise because it is a truly impressive cave, where the sea takes on a turquoise hue. But deadly because the sea in its interior behaves in a very treacherous way ”, he details. Aware of the risk, he admits that he has “never” bathed there. «The sea enters below the main cavity and the secondary ones, which make up this volcanic space. Sometimes it does so with a force that is impossible to foresee. That’s where the problems begin », says Coello, who has an impact on something that seems decisive to him:«People who bypass the ban on bathing there He not only endangers his life, but also that of the members of the rescue teams, who have had to go to the Tancón so many times because someone was in trouble and they have seen and wanted them to get him out of that hell.
And if Jaime Coello speaks of «mortal paradise», a great connoisseur of this cave, Goyo Oliva, calls it «aquatic coffin». Goyo has spent much of his life living in Puerto Santiago, very close to the Tancón. You know it like the back of your hand. This mountain guide issues a crucial warning about this point on the Santiago coast: «The sea does not have to be very bad to have a hard time in the cave. With little force that takes, the situation is very complicated. Goyo, in fact, recalls that the sea “was not particularly bad” on Thursday when the last tragedy occurred. However, there is a decisive factor to be reckoned with: «In summer, especially in August, there is southern weather, which affects this part of Tenerife a lot. You do not see the tides coming unless you are an expert and know how to interpret the sea very well ». One of these sea strokes was the one that upset the entire cave and caused the death of Jasmine and Giovanni.
The ravages of the ‘call effect’
Goyo Oliva underlines the calling effect that social networks have had and that has influenced this part to become one of the black spots of the Tenerife coastline. «Before, very few people knew about this cave. But for five years this has been a permanent procession of noveleros. Social networks have made El Tancón fashionable. Now you do an internet search and hundreds of articles and photos appear extolling its beauty and clarifying how to get there, because it is not easy to see it from the coastal promenade of Puerto Santiago. They are visitors who do not know it and who do not know the risk they face ”, he clarifies. It even appears in a reference to one of the most visited travel websites in the world, the American TripAdvisor, which indicates it as one of the attractions of the southern municipality.
«El Tancón is not a puddle, nor a natural pool, nor a beach. It is a very dangerous sea cave. I have not stopped noticing it on my social networks ». But neither Goo’s warnings, nor those of so many groups linked to nature, nor those of the Santiago del Teide City Council have managed to dissuade reckless adventurers, lovers of posturing. «How many times have I come across people looking for the cave, mobile phone in hand, following a geolocation device … I always tell them the same thing: Don’t even think about it! But nothing. With some there is no way. It must be that a photo is more important than life itself. I don’t know … », reflects Goyo Oliva.
The mayor of Santiago del Teide, Emilio José Navarro, does not know what else to do either. “There were even people who waited for Civil Protection to leave to access the place when it was already known that two people had just died,” he assures resigned. Navarro and his government team finalize the bureaucratic process to put into effect the sanctions, approved in July plenary session, against those who skip the ban on bathing in El Tancón, the last municipal deterrent measure after many others that have not had the expected effect. Anyone denounced will face a fine of between 300 and 3,000 euros.
Some even insult neighbors or shopkeepers who warn them of the enormous risk involved in jumping into the water. It is recognized by the mayor of Santiago del Teide himself, who greatly regrets the loss of two other young people after the sea blow last Thursday. The Santiago authorities remember an important detail in this case: three of the four affected, who came together, did not know El Tancón very well. It’s about the two deceased and a woman who accompanied them, who could be rescued and only suffered minor injuries. None of the three were born in Tenerife. The Italian Giovanni and the companion who was slightly injured did reside on the island and had been to El Tancón before, but they did not have a great knowledge of its peculiarities. Jasmine, however, had just arrived in Tenerife from Switzerland for a vacation. While Giovanni’s body appeared the next day – Friday – lifeless in the waters in front of the cave, Jasmine died on Saturday at the Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria Hospital after failing to overcome cardiorespiratory arrest after being rescued in critical condition.
The drama of drowning
With these cases, the number of drowning victims in the Canary Islands so far this year has risen to 32. It is the leading cause of death by accident in the Archipelago, twice as many as those that occur on island roads. For example, in 2020 43 people died in the Islands due to drowning and in 2019, 52. But the number of fatalities due to traffic accidents in those years was 21 and 31. «However, not a euro is invested in campaigns of awareness to avoid drowning, when millions of euros are spent on traffic campaigns ». It is denounced by Sebastián Quintana, Canarian journalist and promoter of the Canarias platform, 1500 kilometers from the coast, which he created precisely after suffering a drowning.
«The bathing areas of the Canary Islands are not unsafe. The dangerous ones are us, the humans. This wants to make clear the promoter of a group that carries out accidental balance sheets on the coasts based on official reports and the collaboration of the security forces. Quintana recalls that between 2016 and 2020, 327 people have lost their lives in the Archipelago due to accidents in bathing areas. Of them, 41% (135) were born outside of Spain, specifically in 27 different countries.
Alejandra Verde remembers that as a child, when only the people from Santiago knew the Tancón Cave, her parents and brothers told her not to bathe there. The time he did it – and it was about to end in tragedy – he got carried away on a typical teenage beach day with friends. «They did not come to give me resuscitation. They pulled me out just when I was out of air. A few more seconds and … ». He was saved and now Alejandra wants to tell it, so many years later, “so that it doesn’t happen again.”
