The dark aspect of summer in the Valencian Community remains the tragedy of drownings. 2025 is proving to be one of the most challenging years in recent memory, with a July that will be remembered for its 21 fatalities, which tops the national catastrophic ranking.
The most recent events that have had the most profound impact on Alicante residents are the drowning of a 3-year-old girl in a swimming pool in Aigües on Sunday, July 27th, and the drowning of a 2-year-old boy in a swimming pool in Aspe on July 14th.
According to the National Drowning Report (INA), 296 individuals have been killed by drowning in Spanish aquatic spaces between January 1 and July 29th, 2025. Of these, 244 were men (82.4%) and 52 were women (17.6%).
The Canary Islands (39 fatalities, 13.2%), the Valencian Community (38 deaths, 12.8%), and Andalusia (49 deaths, 16.6% of the national total) have been the most severely impacted autonomous communities thus far this year.
This ranks the Valencian Community as the region with the third-highest number of drowning deaths in 2025, with one fatality occurring every two days since the year’s inception.
Black July
However, it was in July that the beaches and pools of the territory were transformed into a cemetery, breaking national records with an average of one fatality every 33 hours.
The month of July has been particularly dramatic. In just 29 days, there have been 85 drowning deaths across Spain, representing 28.7% of the total for the year to date. Or, in other words, one in three drowning deaths in 2025 occurred in July alone.
In this context, the Valencian Community recorded 21 fatalities in July alone, which accounts for 24.7% of all drownings in the country during that month—one in four.
It is the most severely affected community in Spain, with a total of 12 fatalities, double the number of victims in Andalusia, and a significant margin over the remaining communities in the top 5: Castile and León (6), Galicia (7), and Catalonia (10).
July was the deadliest month of the year, as it accounted for over half (55.2%) of the drowning fatalities recorded in the Valencian Community throughout 2025 (21 out of 38).
The figures for July are particularly noteworthy, as they indicate that the number of drownings in Valencian waters is equivalent to the sum of the last ten autonomous communities and cities on the list.
Author: Derek Appleton
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