Barely a month after four middle school students drowned while playing in a river in Hebei province, another set of four students died after they were washed away by strong rapids while crossing a river in Heilongjiang Province.

The local government of Wanquan county, Hebei Province, said five students attempted to cross the Yichun River, near the Yuxi Bridge, on Wednesday night even with the strong current.

Like Us on Facebook

Four the of the five students from the Yichun Amateur Sports School in the city of Yichun were suddenly swept by the raging rapids halfway towards the other side of the river, local authorities said.

"They could have underestimated the power of the Yichun River," said one resident, who was interviewed by local reporters.

A search and rescue operation was conducted Wednesday night but the bodies of the four victims were recovered only on Thursday afternoon, the local authorities said in Friday.

Authorities launched an investigation on the incident to determine why the students insisted on crossing the river and also to determine if there was no foul play involved in the incident.

Yichun City was named after the popular Yichun River, which is a small tributary of Tangwang River.

Last month, four school children drowned while playing in a river in Wanquan, Hebei province.

Three of the middle school students went missing first, prompting the fourth one to launch his own search and rescue to find his school mates but he also was swept away by the river's rapid, said the county government.

A total of 40 rescue personnel and local volunteers participated in the search and rescue operation for the four missing students but to no avail. The bodies of the students were later fetched several meters away from the drowning location.

TagsDrowning, China River Drowning