The river where the students drowned

At 9 am today, May 23, a group of eight pupils from Thanh Thach Secondary School together came to Giang River to bathe.

During the bathing, three girls of Grade 6 who couldn’t swim drowned.

On Tuesday, a woman and her nephew in the central province of Thanh Hoa’s Ngoc Lac District were also found to be drowned.

According to the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, as many as 2,000 children in Vietnam die every year from drowning, the highest rate in South East Asia and 10 times higher than in developed countries.

The number of children that died from drowning was still very high with an average of 5.5 children died in Vietnam every day. Drowning is also the leading cause of death for children, the ministry said.