Three school students who had gone to swim at the Appikonda beach, which somes under the Steel Plant police station limits, drowned in the sea today evening, the police said.
According to the police, six students, who are children of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) employees, residing in Sector 4 and 5 in the Ukkunagaram Township, had gone to the beach in the afternoon.
While they were swimming, they were caught in a strong current, which took them deep into the sea.
While three of them managed to swim safely to the shore with the help of fishermen, their friends drowned in he sea.
Police inspector B Venkata Rao said that the six children who had gone to the beach are students of Class VIII and Class IX of DAV Public School in VSP Township.
Despite fishermen's warnings, students ventured into the sea. After a few minutes, a big wave surged towards them and carried them deep into the sea, he said.
Noticing that the children are in troubled waters, fishermen managed to savee three of them, while the other three drowned in the sea, he said.
The body of one of these three children was retrieved by the police and local fishermen, while the bodies of the two other children are still stated to be missing, he said.
The student whose body has been retrieved has been identified as Prasanna Kumar (13), while those students whose bodies are missing have been identified as Roopesh (14) and Akhilesh (14).
The police has launched search operations with the help of local fishermen.
The police has registered a case and an investigation is on.
