Parents drown rescuing children

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Four parents drowned as they helped rescue their children from the sea off Portugal, the British Foreign Office confirmed to CNN Tuesday.

The four tourists -- three Britons and one German -- rushed into the Atlantic Ocean along with at least three other adults after their children got into difficulties in the surf on a beach near Sagres, around 120 miles south of Lisbon, according to reports in the Portuguese media.

Some of the adults managed to push the children back into shore but others were swept away themselves in the strong Atlantic currents, according to the daily paper Diario de Noticias.

One died in the sea and three others were pulled to the shore, where emergency workers were unable to revive them, the paper reported.

Three other adults required hospital treatment and one of them remains hospitalized, the spokeswoman said.

A British Foreign Office spokeswoman said among those who died were a British couple with two children. She said arrangements were being made to fly out relatives of the orphaned children, who were being looked after by the other families involved in the incident.

Another of those who died was a British mother of two, the spokeswoman told CNN.

No information was immediately available about the German who died.

An official from the British consulate in nearby Portimao had traveled to the scene to provide assistance to the victims, she said.

The three British victims all came from the town of Wootton Bassett, in the southwest of England, according to reports in the British newspaper The Guardian.

The paper reported that the adults had drowned off Tonel beach in the resort town of Sagres, in the far southwest of Portugal. The spot is popular with surfers because of the Atlantic swell but suffers from dangerous rip currents, the paper said. E-mail to a friend