Six persons, including five children, drowned in the Ganga near Marachi in Patna rural, around 60km east of the capital, on Thursday.

Police said the tragedy happened when two boys and three girls aged between 8 and 14 years had gone to take a bath in the swollen river at Marachi Ghat near Mokama in the morning. Mridula, 12, first slipped into deep water. When her grandfather Pawan Singh, 65, tried to rescue her he too lost control and drowned.

By the time local residents rushed to the spot, four other children belonging to the same family had drowned.

Pankaj Singh, 40, father of three of the victims, said that all the children had gone to take bath in the river with a woman on the occasion of Jiutia.

When one of the girls went into the deep water, others tried to save her. In the process, all the children drowned.

The woman who was accompanying the children also tried to save Mridula in vain. Pankaj said the woman raised an alarm but nobody was there to rescue the children.

Local divers were later deployed to recover the bodies. The dead were identified as Mridula, 12, Anmol, 12, Kazal, 11, Khajuri, 8 and Pawan Singh, 65, all residents of Marachi village. Barh sub-divisional officer (SDO) Subrat Sen said the post-mortem examination of the bodies was conducted at the village itself and the bodies handed over to the families.

The state government has announced Rs 4 lakh as ex-gratia payment to the families of each victim.

Barh additional superintendent of police Manoj Tiwari said the houses of the victims were located only 200 metres from the bank of the river. 'They used to go to the river to take bath almost every day as their houses were nearby, but tragedy struck today,' he said.

Chief minister Nitish Kumar spoke to the relatives of the victims.