Jamshedpur, June 11: Two schoolchildren drowned in two separate incidents in and around the steel city in the past 24 hours.

While 13-year-old Bablu Ghosh of Srikrishna Public School, Bistupur, drowned in the Kharkai river, in another accident, 11-year-old Amulya Pathak drowned in a pond under the Patamda police station area this morning.

In a bid to beat the heat, Bablu, a resident of Majhitola in Adityapur had come to the Kharkai with his friends on Saturday afternoon. While taking a dip in the river, the boy slipped and was caught in a whirlpool. His friends, all in their early teens, tried to rescue him, but failed. His body was recovered this morning a little distance away from the spot from where he had drowned.

Having retrieved the body from the river, the police sent it to the MGM Medical College and Hospital for a post-mortem.

In another mishap, Amulya Pathak, who was visiting Patamda?s famous Hatikheda Temple with his parents and siblings, slipped and drowned in a local pond in the area. Pathak was a resident of Chhayanagar in Bhuiyandih, Sitaramdera.

Before visiting the temple, situated 20 kilometres away from the city, the family members went to a pond for the customary bath. The boy?s feet slipped on the moss-covered rocks and he fell into deeper water.

According to eyewitnesses, the victim?s father was close to the boy when he slipped. His parents tried to resuscitate him but failed. Then they rushed the boy to the medical college emergency, where he died.