Drownings prompt warnings on child safety

Parents are being urged to pay more attention to their children's safety during the upcoming summer holiday, following several drowning cases over the weekend.

Eleven students drowned in two separate incidents on Saturday in East China's Shandong province and Northeast China's Heilongjiang province.

Seven middle school students in Laiwu, Shandong province, drowned while swimming in the 3-meter deep Huihe River at about 2 pm, according to Qilu Evening News.

One student got into trouble while swimming, which prompted six others to attempt a rescue. The other six were also dragged into the water and drowned, an eyewitness told the newspaper. The genders of the students involved were not reported.

The bodies were all recovered by 7:50 pm after more than 100 rescuers arrived at the scene, according to an official from the publicity department of the local government.

In a separate case in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang, three boys and a girl from a middle school drowned in the Songhua River on Saturday morning, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

The girl slipped into the river while washing her hands on its banks at Gaojia village on Saturday morning.

Five of her classmates tried to help, but they were also submerged in the river during the rescue. Two were saved by villagers but four died, Xinhua reported.

In yet another case, an 8-year-old boy drowned after he fell into a scenic fountain in Zhengzhou, Central China's Henan province on Thursday, according to Dahe Daily.

The water in the fountain was just 20 centimeters deep, and it's unclear how the boy fell into the water, said the report.

Safe Kids Worldwide, a non-governmental organization based in the United States that focuses on child safety, said that as many as 480 children drown on average every day in the world. Statistics show that drowning was the top cause of accidental child deaths between 2000 and 2007 in China, accounting for nearly 50 percent of such deaths, said Safe Kids Worldwide.

There are no danger warnings at dams, deep rivers and lakes in most rural locations in China, the NGO said.

The tragedies reflected the fact that many parents fail to pay sufficient attention to their children's safety, Wang Xuming, former spokesman of the Ministry of Education, told China Daily on Sunday.

"It's natural that children like to play with water during the hot summer, so parents should give them some basic skills for saving themselves and others," said Wang, who is now president of the Language and Literature Press.

Schools and parents should learn lessons from these recent drowning cases and ensure that children are safe over the holiday, Wang said.

"Lots of parents are busy pushing their children to attend various academic classes during the summer holiday, but safety issues are neglected," he said.

anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn