A RIVER outing and a swim turned into a tragedy for two teenage boys at a rural village in the Betong district of southern Sarawak yesterday.
Norman Suria Arifin, 16, and his friend, Afiq Aiman, 17, drowned in the 4pm incident that happened along the river near the B. Batu Lintang longhouse, said the Sarawak Fire and Rescue Department (Bomba) in a statement.
"The boys were playing and swimming in the river when they got caught in the river currents.
"One of them was found a short while later in the river,” the department said. "The other went missing in the currents and was found after a search operation.”
Both were confirmed to have drowned by medical personnel at the site.
The bodies of the deceased were handed over to the police and are now at the Betong Hospital mortuary.
The incident is one of several fatal drowning tragedies that have been reported from across the country over the past two weeks.
The police have advised the public to take every precaution when venturing to undertake recreational activities at water bodies in natural settings like rivers, lakes and seas.
Woman found in Ampang lake
A woman in her 40s was found drowned in Pandan Lake View at Ampang in Selangor yesterday.
Some passers-by had earlier reported that they saw a woman walking naked towards the Pandan Perdana lake.
Ampang Jaya police chief ACP Mohd Azam Ismail said the police received a distress call at about 8.13am.
"According to the witnesses, the victim entered the lake without clothes on. Her body was later found with the help of the fire department after two hours," he said.
The body was sent to the Ampang Hospital. Mohd Azam urged those with missing relatives or friends to contact the nearest police station.
Recovered from depth of seven metres
On Friday, a 20-year-old youth drowned while swimming in Sungai Berkelah, a dangerously deep river near Gambang in Pahang.
Kuantan district police chief ACP Wan Mohd Zahari Wan Busu said divers found the victim, identified as Harun Mahmud, at a depth of seven metres at 12.54pm.
"The victim reportedly went to the river at 11am with six friends in a motorcycle convoy to have fun. They arrived 30 minutes later. The victim and two friends went deeper into the river to swim.
"They were reportedly swept away by the currents, but the two friends managed to hold on to a branch,” he was quoted as saying by Bernama.
Harun's friends could not do anything to help him as the currents hit the youngster extremely rapidly and the condition of the waters was very rough.
Wan Mohd Zahari said the victim's body was taken to Tengku Ampuan Afzan Hospital for a post-mortem.
Mother, three kids die in water surge
Last week, a tragic water surge incident at Sungai Kenjur near Kampung Poh in Bidor, took the lives of a woman and her three children who were picnicking with others near the river.
Aszura Bani, 36, was caught in the sudden and swift waters that tumbled through the site. Her son Hafif Muhayat Azam, 4, and daughters Hanum Marissa Azam, 2, and Hanna Mikayla Azam, 7, also perished.
An Indonesian maid who was with them had held onto a river rock while attempting to save Hafif, but he slipped from her grasp as the torrent of water was too strong.
Aszura’s sister Aslinda Bani, 38, who was also there managed to survive in the incident on February 7.
She later recounted that it all happened in a blink of an eye, and she survived only because she was pulled out by a villager.
"At that moment, my late sister, who was clutching two of her children, told me to seek help from the villagers.
"After getting assistance, I returned to the scene, but everything was gone, and my sister’s body was found near the scene," she said, unable to contain the sadness of losing Aszura, the sixth among thirteen siblings..
The remains of Aszura's three children were laid to rest in a single grave at the Bidor Muslim Cemetery next to their mother who was buried earlier. – The Vibes, February 12, 2024
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