Divers attempt to recover man’s body from car

Emergency services were last night attempting to recover the body of a man whose car entered the River Lee on the outskirts of Cork City.

Gardaí received a report at approximately 5.45pm that the car had gone into the water at the Marina, close to Lee Rowing Club at the junction with Centre Park Rd.

A member of the gardaí was on the scene quickly and saw the car just seconds before it sank below the surface of the water.

As soon as fire service personnel arrived on scene they commandeered a boat and went to the location where the garda had seen the vehicle sinking.

However, the water level was very high and there was no sign of it.

The car had been carried away from its initial entry point by the tide.

The RNLI arrived on scene a short time later and began searching up and down the stretch of water alongside the Marina.

They were joined at approximately 6.45pm by the Port of Cork’s pilot boat, which is equipped with an echo sounder.

The boats all continued to do a number of sweeps.

At 7.30pm naval service divers arrived on scene and two divers entered the water.

They searched an area of the water for a time and positioned a buoy before coming back to the river bank just before 9pm.

At approximately 9.30pm, after sonar equipment had been brought to the scene, they began to search again.

Approximately an hour later, they located the vehicle and at time of going to press they were attempting to recover the man’s body.