Six children die ice-skating on Chinese river

Six children have drowned while ice-skating on a river in a rural area of northern China, a local government said Sunday.

The children aged five to 11 were skating together yesterday afternoon near a village in Pingyao county in Shanxi province, the county government said.

It said an investigation was continuing.

After residents alerted police that children had fallen in, rescuers were sent to the scene.

About an hour later, they pulled out four bodies. It took divers another 90 minutes to find the bodies of the remaining two children.