KARACHI, June 1: Five persons, including three teenagers, died of suffocation in the underground water tank of their Cattle Colony house on Friday, police said.

They said that three brothers were among the five victims of the tragic incident.

The victims were identified as Bakht Zada, 13, his two brothers Naseem Zada, 15, and Taj Mir, 22, their cousin Sher Hassan, 18, and a 35-year-old neighbour, Ghufran.

The police said that initially Bakht Zada went into the water tank to clean it up but because of accumulated gas he got suffocated and fell unconscious. Four others climbed into the tank to rescue him, but they too fell unconscious and died.

A large number of people from the neighbourhood gathered there and called the police and rescue workers. Later, the five victims were pulled out from the water tank and taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where doctors pronounced
them dead.

On May 20, three members of a family had died of suffocation while trying to clean up the underground tank of their house in Korangi.