Two minor sisters drowned on Tuesday in the Indus River in the Bisham tehsil of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Shangla district, according to officials.

Bisham Station House Officer (SHO) Khurshid Ali told Dawn.com that the children had gone to the river to play at the river bank, where the strong current ended up drowning them.

SHO Ali said the girls’ ages, as told by their relatives, were seven and nine.

He said locals and Rescue 1122 teams were participating in the rescue work to retrieve the bodies as the search continued.

The drowned children belonged to the Butyal village of Bisham.

Rescue 1122 spokesperson Rasool Khan Sharif said divers were making efforts to fish out the bodies from the river, adding that the flow increased after the weather became warmer.

Last week, five people of a family were killed and nine others were rescued when a rickshaw fell into the Gohati Canal in Swabi.

A Rescue 1122 official had said 14 people of a family, including women and children, were travelling in the rickshaw from Bakar village to Gohati area when the three-wheeler skidded off the road and plunged into the canal.

Eyewitnesses said the rickshaw was going at a high speed near Bakar Chowk when the driver lost control over it. As a result, the rickshaw plunged into the canal.