Jajpur: A pall of gloom descended on Bhubaneswar panchayat in Odisha’s Jajpur district on Sunday after a brother and sister drowned in a village pond.

According to reports, Shankar Guru of Samsarpur village was playing near the pond when he accidentally slipped and fell into the water. Seeing her brother in distress, his sister Parvati Guru jumped in to rescue him.

However, both children were swept into deeper waters and drowned.

Villagers said when the siblings could not be located for a considerable period, their family members raised an alarm, prompting a frantic search. After nearly two hours, locals spotted a pair of slippers floating in the pond. A subsequent search led to the recovery of the children’s bodies.

The brother and sister were rushed to the Jajpur District Headquarters Hospital, where doctors declared them brought dead.

Villagers added no one had witnessed the incident.