On August 7, a 10-year-old girl drowned in a residential swimming pool in Huaqiangbei, Shenzhen. As of the 9th, the circumstances of her death are still unconfirmed, with local residential management workers refusing to answer reporters’ questions. The incident, which comes less than a month after the death of a 4-year-old girl in a Bao’an swimming pool, has caused concern among Chinese netizens.
The girl who recently passed away had been taking swimming lessons at a pool inside Jiahui Xincheng Residential Complex, in the Huaqiangbei area. According to her uncle, during class on the August 7, she went into the pool while the instructor’s attention was elsewhere and was only discovered after she had already drowned.
People, most likely the victim's family, setting up a tent and funeral wreaths outside the residential complex
Someone claiming to be a family friend said that the girl was 10 years old, and that she had been attending swimming lessons with two other children who were slightly older than her.
Besides these testimonies, details of the incident remain scarce. On the day the accident occurred, workers at the residential area denied that anything had happened and turned away a reporter from Xinhua, saying that “the management has already gotten off work.”
On August 9, two days after the drowning, local management also unsuccessfully tried to prevent a Shenzhen Evening News journalist from entering. The reporter was able to get access to the pool area where the girl drowned, located in Residential Building 6, through indirect methods.
Once inside, she noted that the pool had been sealed off, and a sign reading “equipment maintenance, temporarily closed to the outside” had been attached to the fence surrounding it.
The sign was taped over another one advertising the pool rules.
Proper certifications for the pool, a high-risk sports program business license and a sanitation license, were present and valid on-site. They showed that the pool was run by Shenzhen Lushan Property Management Co., Ltd., and currently employed a total of three instructors and lifeguards.
According to Gong Shegong, an employee at the local Funan Community Work Center, the victim’s family has already received visits and condolences over their loss. Jiahui Xincheng's residential management has also agreed to pay for public accident insurance for all students who registered for swimming classes, with the total cost to be determined by the insurance company.
While both management and community workers still refuse to say more on the subject, Futian police have confirmed to reporters that the girl’s death was an accident and that the matter is still being investigated.
During a recent call from staff at That's PRD, a policeman at the local police station in Huaqiangbei said that further details would not be revealed to the media, at the request of the victim's family members.
[Images via Shenzhen News r/t Shenzhen Evening News]
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