Three young children drowned yesterday while likely trying to escape the heat at a waterfall in the south of Thailand on a weekend that began with the deaths of four others.
The bodies of a 7-year-old boy and two girls, 5 and 8, were pulled from the Mae Sethi waterfall in Nakhon Si Thammarat province yesterday after they failed to return from a snack run on their bicycles.
The mother of the two girls, who were sisters, said they’d never swam in the waterfall before but probably stopped to cool off without knowing how deep the water there was.
A police investigator said he thought one of the children might have fallen in while the other two drowned attempting as rescue, Thai PBS reported.
The incident is the latest in what is an all too-frequent tragedy. Just this past Friday, Bangkok Post reported four girls ages 9 to 10 drowned in a rice paddy north of Bangkok in Nakhon Ratchasima.
Drowning is the leading cause of death for Thai children under 15. A study conducted by the Child Safety Promotion and Injury Prevention Centre of Ramathibodi Hospital found over 1,400 children have died from drowning each year.
Authorities have urged parents to teach their children how to swim during the summer while they are on break from school.
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