Hopes are fading for a teenage boy missing off the NSW Central Coast.
Keon Sbrugnea, 15, was swimming at The Entrance beach on Sunday afternoon when he was caught in a rip.
The Wyong High School pupil, from Watanobbi, was with two mates and his girlfriend.
They managed to make it to shore and last saw Keon being dragged away from the beach.
Authorities were still searching for him on Tuesday afternoon but hopes of finding him alive were fast diminishing.
A police spokesman said searches would continue until Tuesday evening before authorities assessed whether to continue.
Tributes were paid to the popular teenager on Facebook.
“A young life taken to (sic) soon,” one person wrote.
Keon’s grandmother Joan told the Newcastle Herald that the teenager’s family, including his twin brother Callan, were devastated.
“The family is really not holding up well at all,” she told the newspaper.
“It’s just terrible. Callan is just heartbroken. The whole family is.”
Meanwhile the search for a 57-year-old rock fisherman, missing from the far south coast of NSW since Monday, has been scaled down.
The Canberra resident is believed to be dead.
“A man was washed from rocks while rock fishing off Haycock Point, south of Pambula. He is now presumed drowned,” Surf Life Saving NSW duty officer Andrew Edmunds said in a statement.
Another fisherman was rescued from rocks at Hat Head, on the NSW north coast, on Tuesday morning.
Westpac Life Saver Rescue Helicopter CEO Stephen Leahy says the man was reported missing at 1pm (AEDT) on Monday.
He was winched off the rocks on Tuesday morning and is thought to have spent the night stranded.
Mr Leahy says dangerous surf conditions are expected until at least Thursday afternoon.
“Conditions are going to continue to remain dangerous for the next 48 hours,” he told AAP.
South Maroubra Beach, in Sydney’s east, was closed on Tuesday because of dangerous surf.
Randwick mayor Scott Nash urged swimmers and rock fishermen to exercise extreme caution.
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