Fox News Flash top headlines for March 12
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The San Diego Police Department told Fox News Digital that eight people are confirmed dead so far after two boats carrying a "group of immigrants" crashed off Black's Beach.
The police spokesman said San Diego Lifeguards is handling the incident as rescue and recovery efforts continue.
A tweet from a KNSD reporter, initially listing the death toll at 6, says Coast Guard, the San Diego Fire Department, and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol also responded.
Two boats carrying migrants crashed off the coast of San Diego. (ONSCENE.TV)
A fire official described how thick fog hampered rescue efforts overnight. It's unclear how many people might have made it on shore.
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San Diego crews transported the bodies of drowned migrants from Black's Beach. (ONSCENE.TV)
"We couldn’t get any helicopters up. We had boats in the water, but at first light, once all the conditions clear, we will have Coast Guard out here and San Diego Fire-Rescue and lifeguards doing a joint search through the water for any possible victims that are left," Daniel Eddy, San Diego Fire-Rescue’s deputy chief of operations, told OnScene TV.
The Coast Guard announced on Twitter that the search was suspended at 3:30 p.m.
At least 8 people died when boats of migrants crashed off San Diego's coast. (ONSCENE.TV)
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported police first learned about the incident shortly after 11:30 p.m. Saturday when a woman called 911 to report she had come from Mexico by boat and that one of the boats had capsized. The caller said nine or 10 people might have been in the water after the other boat overturned.
The woman also reportedly told dispatchers eight people traveling on the boat she was on had made it to shore.
Survivors may have escaped on land, including the woman who called 911. Authorities did not know her whereabouts. San Diego Lifeguard Chief James Gartland said rescuers found the two boats overturned in shallow waters when they arrived. Surf was modest, with swells around 3 feet, but skies were foggy and black.
"That area is very hazardous, even in the daytime," Gartland said at a press conference. "It has a series of sandbars and in-shore rip currents, so you can think that you can land in some sand or get to waist-high, knee-high water and think that you’re able to be safe to exit the water, but there’s long, in-shore holes. If you step into those holes, those rip currents will pull you along the shore and back out to sea."
This file image shows Blacks Beach in San Diego, California. Police confirm two boats carrying migrants crashed off the coast overnight. (Sam Hodgson/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
According to tourism website GoSanDiego.com, Black’s Beach is one of the largest nude beaches in the United States.
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It's considered one of the most secluded beaches in San Diego, located below and just to the north of the Torrey Pines Gliderport. Beyond coming to play in the sun, sand, and surf in the nude on the state-run north end of the beach, tourists flock there to "surf the most dangerous swells in San Diego on the city-run south end of the beach," the website says.
At least some of Saturday's victims were Mexican, according to the consulate in San Diego, but how many was unknown.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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