Montreal, July 7: Two young men from Punjab lost their lives over the weekend after drowning in the Lachine Canal in Montreal, Canada. The tragic incident occurred late Saturday night when one of the friends unexpectedly slipped and fell into the water, and the second man drowned while bravely jumping in to rescue him. The Quebec Coroner’s Office confirmed on Monday that both individuals succumbed to their injuries in the hospital after being pulled from the canal in critical condition.
One of the victims has been identified as twenty-six-year-old Lovepreet Singh, a resident of Tapa Mandi in Punjab’s Barnala district. The second youth is believed to hail from Butala village in the Amritsar district, though authorities have not yet officially confirmed his identity. Following the sudden tragedy, the grieving families of both men in Punjab have made an appeal to the government for urgent assistance to help repatriate the bodies back home for their final rites.
The emergency services received the initial distress call at five minutes before midnight on Saturday, reporting that two individuals had gone into the Lachine Canal near its junction with the Saint Lawrence River. A massive rescue operation was immediately launched, utilizing sonar equipment, a Canadian Coast Guard vessel, and two specialized boats from the local fire department. Around twenty to thirty emergency responders systematically combed the area for nearly two hours before locating the two men under the water.
Local officials stated that the rescue operation formally concluded on Sunday morning. They affirmed that these two latest fatalities mark the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth drownings recorded in the province of Quebec this year. Authorities declared that while preliminary findings trace the event back to an accidental slip and a subsequent failed rescue attempt, a comprehensive investigation remains underway to establish the exact sequence of events leading up to the drownings.
