British tourist drowns while swimming in sea off Greek island

The victim had been on a tourist boat trip from Kos

Kalymnos island (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

A British tourist has drowned while swimming in the sea off a Greek island, according to local reports.

The victim, aged 76, had come to the isolated beach on the Aegean island Kalymnos on a tourist boat from Kos during scorching 25C sunshine.

Local reports said the unidentified man drowned in front of his wife after struggling to get back on the boat.

Friends called emergency services and a team of coastguards, police and divers in two boats pulled him from the water on April 16.

The man was taken by the coastguard to the port of Vathi where he was pronounced dead at Kalymnos General Hospital, according to local news site Palmoskalymnou.

The cause of the drowning remains unclear and investigations will be carried out by the Kalymnos Port Authority.

The island is only around 70 miles from Marmaris in Turkey, where last month a British pensioner also drowned.

The man, named in reports as 73-year-old Denis Crawley, is thought to have got into difficulty after jumping into the water during a sightseeing cruise.