Angler, 70, washed out to sea at Wied iz-Zurrieq
Search to resume this morning
A 70-year-old man from Zurrieq was washed out to sea by a wave when he was fishing on shore in an area known as iz-Zellieq, close to Wied iz-Zurrieq early yesterday morning. The incident happened at about 2.30 a.m.
A search by the Armed Forces, together with the civil protection department and the police, was called off at dusk but it is expected to resume today.
The man is Albert Saliba, father of four.
It was one of his sons, Norman, who was with him at the time, that reported the incident.
The missing man's brother, also in his seventies, said Norman had been helping his father pull a fishing line from the sea after they had cast it the evening before.
Norman is said to have told his father not to climb down the foreshore because of the high waves. Albert had taken a lifejacket with him but he did not use it, his brother said.
Norman told relatives he heard his father murmur a couple of words as the wave carried him away.
Albert's brother recalled that as young boys they used to go fishing with their father at the same spot at night.
They usually fell sleep and their father used to tie their feet together and to his own so that if he fell asleep and one of the children sleepwalked they would not end up in the sea. The area is dangerous because of the slope.
The spot where the incident occurred yesterday is not very far from where a man from Qormi lost his life in similar circumstances a couple of years ago. The missing man had been found dead more than a week later.