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A FRANTIC rescue operation unfolded late yesterday afternoon in the East Dry River area after an eight-year-old girl was swept nearly a kilometre through a network of flooded underground drains during intense rainfall.

Police reports indicate that the child, a resident of Ward Lane in Gonzales, was playing in the area around 3.45 p.m. when another child reportedly pushed her into a swollen drain.

The powerful current immediately dragged her beneath the surface, pulling her into the hidden drainage system that ultimately empties into the Dry River.