Three men have died after being pulled from the water at Camber Sands Beach on the hottest day of the year.

The deaths follow a week of tragedy on Britain's beaches that saw seven people lose their lives in five separate incidents.

Emergency teams were called to the beach near Rye, East Sussex at around 2.15pm on Wednesday, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said.

"The three men, who have not yet been identified, sadly died despite efforts to save them," a Sussex Police spokesman said.

The Lydd and Lee-on-Solent-based UK Coastguard search-and-rescue helicopters were also at the scene, along with an air ambulance, an RNLI lifeboat and Coastguard rescue teams.

It was thought a fourth person was rescued from the sea later but Sussex Police later retracted that information.

Witnesses posted video footage on Twitter of rescue teams at the scene.

Eyewitness Natalja Taylor, 30, said: "Police drove on to the beach with a loudspeaker, telling people not to go into the water until further notice. They also taped off a huge chunk of the beach so no-one could get near it.

"It's pretty scary. I'm not sure how it happened. We decided not to go into the sea after seeing warning signs about some kind of fish. It wasn't particularly windy down there, it was just a hot, sunny beach day."