A 19-year-old man who got in­to dif­fi­cul­ty while swim­ming at a beach in Pa­lo Seco on Sun­day is feared drowned.

Up to this morn­ing, of­fi­cials were still search­ing for Justin Thomas of San­ta Flo­ra.

Short­ly be­fore 11 am, of­fi­cers re­spond­ed to a re­port of a drown­ing at Sobo Beach.

Eye­wit­ness­es told po­lice Thomas was swim­ming with friends when they en­coun­tered strong cur­rents.

His friends be­gan swim­ming to shore and alert­ed him to turn around. Thomas was about 400 me­ters away from shore when he be­gan ex­pe­ri­enc­ing dif­fi­cul­ties and dis­ap­peared un­der­wa­ter.

Erin fish­er­men, the Coast Guard and TTPS Air Sup­port Unit were con­tact­ed for as­sis­tance.