Two sisters in the Central American nation of Belize are dead after drowning in a septic pit that was left open and uncovered in the midst of septic tank construction, according to local reports.
Per both 7 News Belize and Greater Belize, police in the region of Bella Vista in the Toledo District in southern Belize were alerted to an area where a septic tank was in the process of being constructed on Monday night at about 5:00 p.m. local time. Once there, inside an open, water-filled pit where the tank was to go, they discovered the bodies of 8-year-old Anllely Argueta and her 7-year-old sister Lauri Argueta.
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According to the media outlets, the little girls had gone on an errand for their grandmother earlier in the afternoon and had wandered onto a local construction site. Once they failed to return home, family members went looking for them. Family first found the girls’ bicycles and some clothing in the area, before eventually finding the duo unresponsive in the water of the uncovered septic pit.
Speaking to the media outlets, the girls’ mother Delmi Argueta said:
“They never arrived [at the errand spot]. They took another route and that’s how they ended up [at the pit]. One of them was found without clothes and the other had on her clothes and they hid their bikes behind the house that was there.”
Delmi went on to recall the horror that swept over her — not only when she realized that her little girls had gone to the open septic pit where the tank was to be set, but also upon learning just how deep the pit was. Delmi also recalled jumping in herself to try to save them, but to no avail:
“When I called my mom, I asked if she had seen them and she said ‘no.’ So, she came out and that’s when she saw their bikes. When I got there, they told me they were in that pit, and so I jumped in to take them out but they were already dead. I think that they wanted to swim in the water but they didn’t know that the pit was deep. We didn’t even know that the pit was there.”
Ugh.
The girls’ grandmother Ligia Contreras told Greater Belize that when she first happened upon the pit, she found a stick and began prodding around for the girls’ bodies:
“I found a stick, I stuck it in, I felt there was something there, and I called out to [Delmi] to hurry up because they had fallen into the well.”
Bella Vista city chairman Jose Morales later told Love FM that the girls appeared to have been riding through the area when they “decided to take a shower” in the septic pit and drowned. Cops think the younger girl Lauri jumped in first, after which point older sister Anllely jumped in with a futile effort to save her.
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Morales explained that the issue of unfinished septic tanks and wide-open, uncovered pits is a problem in that area:
“People take advantage of the dry season to do septics and they cannot finish it or cover it before the rainy season starts. This is what causes the flooding and when it’s already full with water … they cannot finish. So we need to address all of this to our community and this is something serious that we need to look into.”
Now, sadly, it has led to an unthinkable tragedy.
We send our condolences to the girls’ family, friends, and loved ones.
R.I.P.
[Image via WENN/Avalon]
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