KARACHI: Two boys drowned in a storm-water drain in North Nazimabad on Tuesday evening.

Four scavengers, aged between 10 and 12 years, fell into the drain and after hours-long search one of them was rescued while efforts were ongoing to find the fourth boy.

Officials said that area people in Nusrat Bhutto Colony near Shahrah-i-Noor Jahan came to know that four boys fell into the drain. The people first tried on their own to retrieve them and later called the police and local administration for help.

“The police called the search and rescue unit of the fire department which was later joined by Edhi volunteers,” said an area police official. “Within a few minutes of the incident a boy was rescued alive. He was unconscious but out of danger and shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for treatment.”

He said a couple of hours later rescuers found the bodies of two boys. “The search for the fourth one is still on.” He said the exact cause behind the incident was not yet clear. But some witnesses told the police that the boys had fallen into the nullah after an already-cracked concrete slab had broken.

He said the police had spotted the exact point where the children met the tragic incident.

“The darkness and heavy flow of sewage hindered the rescue operation for the search of the fourth boy,” he said.

The names of the victims could not be immediately ascertained.

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2019