Catanduanes has recorded its first drowning incident of the year, with two five-year old kids recovered from a river in Gigmoto town last week.
The police said the unfortunate accident occurred at about 2 P.M. of March 9 in barangay San Vicente, where a boy and a girl from Purok 2 who ventured into the water were carried by the strong current and apparently drowned, to the grief of their parents who learned of the incident an hour later.
Several concerned citizens, the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (MDRRMO) and the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) in Gigmoto conducted a search and rescue operation and recovered the two kids but they were declared dead on arrival at the district hospital.
The report did not state why the victims were unsupervised when they went to the river.
Last year, during the Holy Week celebration, two boys drowned in separate occasions at sea in Caramoran and Baras towns.
Unattended by his guardians, a six-year old boy was carried by the current to the deep portion of the sea in sitio Palumbanes, barangay Toytoy. In Guinsaanan, Baras, just days later, a three-year old boy, also left unattended, drowned in the sea.