Girl drowns while playing in drain

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KUCHING: A 10-year-old girl drowned late yesterday afternoon after she slipped and got trapped in a culvert while playing in a flooded drain.Siti Aishah Yusof was discovered in the drain in front of her house at Kampung Haji Baki around 4.30pm by her eight-year-old male cousin who was supposed to play with her.

When met yesterday, the girl’s  mother Rosita Abdullah said Siti Aishah, who studied at SK Haji Baki, wanted to play in the drain after seeing her two sisters, aged six and 11, do the same earlier.

“It was raining but she was adamant to play in the drain. She asked her two siblings to join her but they did not want to, so she went to the drain alone and asked her cousin to join her,” said Rosita, who also has a year-old infant girl.

Aishah was believed to have slipped while playing in the overflowing two feet deep drain and was carried by the swift flowing water head-first into the culvert where she became trapped and drowned.

The cousin notified the victim’s family and, with the help of neighbours, they retrieved Aishah’s body from the culvert prior to the arrival of firemen.

Paramedics who were also called to the scene pronounced the girl dead, and her body was sent to  the mortuary for a postmortem.