Picture: Screenshot Picture: Screenshot
Cape Town - While South Africa faces a dire water crisis and bleak dam levels, young Australians have found their new favourite hobby - dam surfing.
Dam-surfing has been around for a few years, and now thrillseekers are bodysurfing down Tweed Shire's Clarrie Hall Dam. The dam is approximately 43 metres high and 175 metres in length.
Authorities in Tweed Shire have warned of the new craze's consequences. "It's got a large flip bucket at the end which is an energy dissipating device and with any significant flow you can be held underwater in that flip bucket and drowned, obviously on the way down you can be rendered unconscious and drown," said Tweed Shire Council's manager of water, Anthony Burnham.
He added that actions have been taken to remove videos of dam surfing from social media and said the council is considering to close the dam to the public.
So why do these youngsters do this dangerous activity?
It's all for the views!
"If a video had roughly 3.5 million views a year, they would make roughly between $8 000 and $10 000," said Managing director of Safe on Social Media Kirra Pendergast. That amounts to approximately between R109 000 and R137 000.
While this video was initially captured in May 2016, it resurfaced on social media, resulting in many shares and of course, many views.