Human Writes: Kids are drowning, so why aren’t we teaching them to swim?

It's a scenario we hear of all too often. Children go out to play in a mining pool or river. They have fun. But suddenly, someone is struggling in the water. A friend or sibling dives in to help. Eventually, they all drown. Or some end up with brain damage.

After the usual outpouring of emotion in newspapers and social media, these incidents wash past us. How many of us remember the incident in Bukit Beruntung, Selangor, last year? In that tragedy, seven children, aged between nine and 12, drowned when they were swept away by fast-flowing water in Sungai Selangor. The search to find them involved 115 people.