Motihari: Gorasahan police in Koyariya Laukhan village on Friday recovered the bodies of two girls who had gone missing from East Champaran on Thursday, from a ditch.

Kajali Kumari (7) and Arti Kumari (6), cousins, were drowned in floodwater while trying to cross a roadside ditch at Koyariya Laukh village in Gorasahan block. "We launched a search to locate their whereabouts but of no avail," said Santosh Kumar Kushwaha, the father of Arti, adding that the bodies were spotted by the villagers floating in the ditch.

"Prima facie, it appears that they failed to judge the depth and drowned," said Yusuf Ansari, officer-in-charge of Ghorasahan police station. The bodies were sent for a post-mortem, police said.

This is the fifth death registered in the past three days. On July 5, the body of a villager, Sadhu Yadav, was fished out by an NDRF team from Aurairya river at Guleriya village in Narkatiaganj sub-division.