A toddler was swept to his death down a sewage pipe in the western Russian city of Bryansk yesterday after a pavement gave way while his mother was taking him for a walk.
Local police and emergency services told the ITAR-Tass news agency that a burst water pipe had caused the pavement above it to collapse under the mother, who was pushing her one-and-a-half-year-old son in a pram.
Her husband, a traffic police officer who was on duty nearby, was able to rescue the mother from the hole, the officials said, but the child was swept away by the rushing water.
His body was found 6km from the spot where he disappeared, according to police.
Russian infrastructure is notoriously unreliable, having suffered from a chronic lack of investment since the fall of the Soviet Union 20 years ago.
