RECKLESS thrillseekers have been warned they are risking their lives by leaping into a flooded quarry and posting their antics online.
Scores of short films have been posted on video-sharing website YouTube showing foolhardy youths wearing swimming trunks jumping in to the murky depths of flooded slate workings on the Horseshoe Pass, known locally as the Blue Lagoon.
The latest, added a couple of days ago, shows about half a dozen lads frolicking on the steep, craggy sides of the quarry.
Headed ‘Blue Lagoon Llangollen cliff jumpers’, it has already had more than 400 views and shows one of them plunging about 30ft, described on the site as a ‘ridiculous’ distance, from the rockface down into the water.
Public safety experts and landowners have joined a chorus of disapproval, with the summer weather being blamed for encouraging the activity.
The quarry is owned and operated by Jones Brothers of Ruthin.
A spokesman for the company said: “This is not a public swimming facility.
“We advise people never to go there for their own safety.”
A spokesman from Environment Agency Wales said: “You should be very careful around water and take every precaution.
“It is dangerous and we all know the hidden dangers in water.”
Duncan Lumsden, part of the team which runs the nearby Ponderosa Cafe at the summit of the Horseshoe Pass, said: “There have always been kids going to the Blue Lagoon to cool down in the summer.
“You see them quite often going there with their towels.
“Of course, they do it at their own risk.”
He added: “There have been no real accidents there as far as I know but it is not a very good thing to do as the water can be very cold there even in a heatwave.”