A teenage boy has died after being buried alive when a sand tunnel he was digging on a beach in Italy suddenly caved in, writes dailymail.co.uk.

The 17-year-old, named locally as Riccardo B., was on holiday with his family when tragedy struck on the popular Montalto di Castro beach, near the border of the Tarquinia region in north-west Italy.

Riccardo had been playing in the sand, carving out a tunnel that he intended to crawl through from one side to the other. But as he passed through the centre, the structure gave way without warning, swallowing him whole and leaving no trace on the surface.

A swimmer who witnessed the horror said: “He had built a tunnel. He wanted to enter from one side and exit from the other. But as he passed through, when he reached the centre, everything collapsed and the hole was completely covered. You couldn’t see anything anymore; you could have walked right through it and not noticed a thing”.