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4-year-old Toyama boy drowns in agricultural waterway

3 Comments

Police in Nanto Toyama Prefecture, said Sunday that the body of a 4-year-old boy who disappeared while playing in the backyard of his home on Saturday afternoon has been found after he apparently fell into an agricultural waterway and drowned.

Police believe that the boy, Koki Tawara, fell into the ditch that runs by the back of his house where he was last seen at around 4 p.m. Saturday, TV Asahi reported. There is no fence between the backyard and the ditch. Koki's father notified police at around 5 p.m.

On Sunday, about 80 police and local residents searched the area and the waterway. Koki's body was found at around 5 p.m. about 1.2 kilometers downstream from his home.

The waterway is about 60 cms wide and 30 cms deep.

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3 Comments
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At this time of year, those waterways are running at capacity to flood the rice paddies. We've had this discussion so many times before. It boils down to complacent parents who either think it won't happen to their children, or it never crosses their minds in the first place. Either way, bad parenting choices have once again resulted in a child's preventable death.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

If there was no fence between the backyard and the ditch then he certainly shouldn't have been playing outside unsupervised at that age.

I know some posters here like to say that you can't watch a child 24 hours a day, but an open agricultural waterway like that is a pretty obvious hazard. Every year we hear about children falling into them and drowning, so there is really no excuse for this. Either a fence should have been put up, a grating installed above the waterway, or someone outside watching him. It is a terrible loss for his parents, but this easily could have been prevented.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

As sad and perhaps preventable as this is, I don't think that laying blame on the parents will help anything. The police will investigate the matter and no matter what the end result is, these parents will have to live with the fact that their child died not far from the family home. I challenge sensei258 to watch their child/children 24 hours a day, 365 days a year with no incidents...we don't know what the family circumstances are and if complacency was a factor at all...

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

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