The drowning deaths of a Filipino woman and a Melbourne man in separate incidents have capped off a tragic two days on Victoria's Gippsland coast.
The woman, 34, was one of 15 people swept out to sea by a rip tide on Phillip Island Sunday evening just minutes after off-duty lifeguards warned the group about the rip.
The lifeguards were going for an evening swim at Cape Woolamai beach when they noticed 15 people wading in knee-deep water near a rip.
They asked the group to leave the water and a short time later "heard a commotion" and saw four people struggling in the water.
Two lifeguards and a surfer initially pulled two people from the water, while the other two were found floating face down up to 60 metres from shore, Life Saving Victoria said.
They performed CPR on them before paramedics arrived.
Surfer Ed Borromeo said he found a woman unconscious in the water.
"I was just scared," he told reporters at the beach on Monday.
"I put my arm around her, held on to the board and I kicked in, then I went out to get another one but I just couldn't, and then the lifesavers were there and I let them handle it."
Lifesavers already at the beach sent messages to colleagues, and soon 17 assisted with the mass rescue.
A man and woman were flown by advanced life support paramedics to The Alfred hospital.
The woman died there on Monday while a man, 27, is in a critical condition.
Two men and a woman are also recovering in hospital.
Life Saving Victoria warned people not to swim outside patrol hours and not to panic if caught in a rip.
"If you're caught in a rip current stay calm, conserve your energy and call out to seek help," Life Saving Victoria's Greg Scott said in a statement.
"If you float with the current, it may return you to a shallow sandbank."
On Monday afternoon, a 75-year-old Maribyrnong man drowned at Coronet Bay, minutes from Phillip Island.
Police say he was swimming with a relative and was found face down in the water.
An off-duty nurse attempted CPR but he died on the beach.
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