Domingos Montagner drowns in river Velho Chico

Domingos Montagner, who is an actor in Brazil's most popular soap opera 'Velho Chico', reportedly drowned in the same river the show was named after.

The Brazilian actor from Sao Paulo played the leading role in Velho Chico, a soap opera named after the Sao Francisco river where he had gone for a swim with an actress after a day of shooting in the north-eastern state of Sergipe, reports the BBC.

Camila Pitanga, the actress who accompanied him to the swim, said that he was dragged away by the river's strong currents. However, the local people failed to act to her cries initially because they mistook the drowning for a scene in the soap opera.

"They thought they had chosen a safe spot to swim, but that is one of the most dangerous areas in the town of Caninde and usually avoided by locals," the police chief, Antonio Francisco, told O Globo.

The rescue team found the actor's dead body underwater four hours later and some 300 metres from where he had drowned.

Montagner is survived his wife Luciana Lima and three children Leo Montagner, Dante Montagner and Antonio Montagner.