A girl was rescued by locals while two were still missing after falling into the Indus River in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Shangla district on Thursday, according to the police.

Puran Circle Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) Usman Munir told Dawn.com: “The young girls had gone to the river to fetch water for domestic use, but suddenly, due to the fast flow of the river, the sand and mud collapsed and swept them away,” adding that the incident occurred in the Kamach area.

He said one of the girls was rescued by some residents present at the river’s bank in the area.

The SDPO said a search operation was launched in the area by Rescue 1122, but the flow of water in the river was too high.

Ibadullah Khan, a local activist, said that there was no Rescue 1122 outpost in the area. “Locals had no alternative source of potable water but to fetch it from the river and such accidents were common in the area”, he said.

On Wednesday, at least four people drowned, and one child went missing after a seven-seater van fell into a rain drain in Punjab’s Attock district, according to Rescue 1122.

Earlier in the month, four children drowned while bathing in a pond in the Daulat Khel area of KP’s Lakki Marwat district, according to Rescue 1122.