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Three siblings drown, one missing in Warta River tragedy

PR dla Zagranicy
Peter Gentle 07.08.2013 08:15
Emergency services resumed the search for a missing 14 year-old boy, Wednesday morning, after his brother and two sisters drowned in the Warta River in Zalesiaki, Lodz province on Tuesday.

Divers
Divers search for missing 14 year-old boy after three of his siblings drown in Warta River: photo - PAP/Grzegorz Michałowsk

“Due to the gathering dusk, we suspended the rescue operation and will continue it on Wednesday morning,” said spokesman for the local fire fighting service, Arkadiusz Makowski last night.

The tragedy happened when a 36 year-old mother took five of her children and a babysitter to sunbathe on the banks of the Warta River in central Poand.

While the youngest child, a 5 year-old girl, remained with her mother on the shore, two brothers, aged 14 and 15 years, and two sisters, aged 7 and 11, went to swim in the river, as temperatures rose to over 30 degrees Celsius.

“The Warta here is quite wide and the children drifted too far away from the shore and all four were taken by the current out of sight of their mother,” Radoslaw Gwis from Lodz police told reporters.

The distraught mother called the emergency services, who searched for the missing children using rafts and boats, with police eventually using a helicopter and divers to find the siblings.

After an hour's search rescuers found the 7-year-old girl and her 15 year-old brother and following prolonged attempts at resuscitation medical staff failed to save both their lives.

Some hours later, the police helicopter spotted the body of the 11-year-old girl, three kilometres from where she was last seen by her mother.

The mother was taken to the local police station where she is under the care of specialist staff.

An investigation is under way into the cause of the tragedy.

Thirty one people died from drowning in Poland last weekend. (pg)

source: PAP

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