Three children from Bhadrapur municipality died when they drowned in an under-construction pond in the Kamaldhap Tourism and Wetland Construction Site in Prithvinagar, in Ward No. 2 of the same municipality, on Wednesday afternoon.

According to the District Police Office, Jhapa, two of the deceased were siblings and the third one their neighbour.

The three children had gone out to play on Wednesday and didn’t return home until late evening. The families of the deceased went looking for them and found the body of one of the deceased in the pit the same evening.

The bodies of the two other deceased were recovered from the same pond on Thursday morning, said District Police Spokesperson DSP Rakesh Thapa. “The construction of a pond inside the wetland area had come to a halt because of the rains. The pit was already 10 feet deep and 3 mt long and filled with rainwater,” he said.