One youth died after drowning in a stream of floodwater while filming a Tik Tok video in Darbhanga district of Bihar on Monday. The body of the youth was recovered a day later by the authorities.
The deceased, Afzal, a resident of Adalpur village, with his two friends Kasim and Sitare, were making TikTok videos in which they were performing stunts by diving into a stream of floodwater in Keoti block. A video of the incident has also been found.
The video shows one of the friends Kasim diving into the gushing floodwater while the other friend is filming the act from a mobile phone. Kasim is suddenly seen struggling to stay afloat in the water and Afzal dives in to save him. Even though Kasim managed to escape but moments later, Afzal drowned in the floodwater.
Seeing this, many people jumped into the floodwater to save the youngster but could not find him. A day later, a team of National Disaster Response Force (DDRF) recovered the body from the spot where he had drowned.
Many other videos were found in the mobile phones of the youngsters featuring slow-motion videos of them diving into floodwater.
The district administration on Thursday appealed the public to stay away from floodwater and avoid attempting such stunts and taking selfies or videos near water bodies.
Darbhanga District Magistrate Thyagarajan said, "We make an appeal to parents to pay attention to the children and instruct them to avoid such misadventures like diving into the river streams."
"Unfortunately, many deaths have been caused due to such negligence and misadventures. It is important to spread awareness on such events and it is also our responsibility to ensure such deaths do not happen," he added.
Worryingly, despite warnings by the authorities to the public, many children were still seen diving into the rivers from various bridges while various people were seen passing by as mute spectators.
( With inputs from ANI )