Two children drowned after falling into a lake while flying kites around it in the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai on Thursday, according to local authorities.

The two victims were among a group of about ten students flying kites at an open field bordering the water surface of Bien Ho (Sea Lake), a famous freshwater lake 800 meters above sea level in Gia Lai’s Pleiku City, late on Thursday afternoon.

At around 5:30 pm, the four children including Nguyen Hoang M.T. and Tran Doan L.T., both 14 years old, and Truong Thi Y.N. and Hoang K.T., both 12 years old, slipped and fell into the lake before being swept into the deep water.

At that time, 13-year-old Tran Duy, who was also flying a kite nearby, quickly ran to help and was able to pull Y.N. and K.T. ashore safely.

Meanwhile, the other two children could not be saved.

M.T. and L.T. were later brought ashore by local people and rushed to a hospital where doctors declared that they were dead.

Drowning claims the lives of more than 2,000 children in Vietnam every year and is among the leading causes of death among children in the country, heard a conference on child drowning prevention jointly held by the Party Central Committee’s Commission for Information and Education and the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids, and Social Affairs on December 15, 2020. 

This drowning rate is the highest in Southeast Asia and ten times that of developed countries.

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