Open pits in Madhesh continue to swallow children in the monsoon

As many as 542 people, most of them children, drowned in three years in rain-filled pits and unguarded water bodies left behind by construction and excavation work.

As the evening approached, Rambabu Sah and Shyambabu Sah of Sarabe village in ward 2 of Kamala Municipality in Dhanusha started getting anxious. For the whole of Tuesday, they had been desperately searching for their young sons—seven-year-old Ritik and five-year-old Ritish—who had gone out to play earlier in the day but had not returned home.