The National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) has appealed to the public to not set off sky lanterns as eye-witnesses mistake them for distress flares.
Spokesperson Craig Lambinon said that “reports of distress flares sighted around the coastline require the NSRI and the emergency services to launch a full-scale search and rescue operation without hesitation”.
He added: “Even when the sighting may later be confirmed to have been sky lanterns‚ a search operation can continue for quite some time until it can be absolutely confirmed that no persons or craft at sea may be in any difficulty.”
Lambinon also noted that the lanterns pose a fire hazard‚ which is exacerbated as “drought conditions have rendered open areas to be more dry and more susceptible to fire than normal”. – TMG Digital
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