Varanasi: A woman and a child died after drowning in a canal connected to the Rihand dam in the Pipri police station area of Sonbhadra district.The bodies were recovered after 20 hours of intensive efforts. The incident occurred on Monday evening in Belwadah in the Pipri police station area of Sonbhadra district. While crossing a small canal with the help of a tube, Usha (24) and her niece Rinki (2) fell into the canal. The SDRF team was engaged in the search for the woman and child.A local resident Rahul was crossing a small canal connected to the Rihand dam with the help of a tube, along with his wife Usha and Rinki around 6 pm on Monday. Due to a sudden loss of balance, Usha and Rinki slipped from the tube and went into deep water. Nearby villagers gathered at the spot, and the police were immediately informed. The police reached the spot and conducted a search operation until late evening with the help of local divers, but success was not achieved due to darkness and dense bushes in the water.On Tuesday morning, a nine member SDRF team from Varanasi reached the incident site around 10 am under the leadership of sub-inspector Shahanshah Katiyar. The team started the search operation and, after about four hours of hard work, recovered the bodies stuck in bushes underwater around 2 pm. CO Randhir Mishra said that the bodies were sent for post-mortem.
