Three children drown in Vietnam

Hanoi: Three siblings aged between six to 10 years of age drowned in Vietnam's central Quang Binh province, the country's state-run Vietnam News Agency reported on Tuesday.

The trio, two of whom were girls, were in the Gianh River of Quang Binh's Tuyen Hoa district when they fell into a deep hole and drowned on Monday afternoon.

Within less than a month, at least 16 people, mostly children, have drowned in Quang Binh, according to the provincial authorities.

"Drowning is a silent epidemic claiming more than 2,000 children's lives per year in Vietnam," an official from the World Health Organization in Vietnam told international media recently, adding that the rate of children drowning in Vietnam is higher than other Southeast Asian nations and 10 times higher than that of developed countries.

The official said that many deaths caused by drowning in Vietnam were preventable, and the drowning rate among local children would fall if adults supervise kids' activities more closely, and more kids were provided with survival swimming and water safety skills.