A six-year-old girl was found dead with her legs devoured by piranhas following a boating accident in Brazil, according to local media.

Adrila Muniz was with her grandmother and four other children on the Maicuru river in the northern state of Para, near Monte Alegre, when bad weather caused their canoe to capsize.

While the other children were saved, piranhas set upon the girl, biting away her flesh to the bone. One account suggests the child first drowned and then the lower half of her body was attacked.

"I tried to hold on to her, but with all the other children around she slipped out of my grasp," the grandmother reportedly told local media, in quotes published by the International Business Times.

"I couldn't see her any more when we got to the bank."

The girl was pulled out of the water and dragged into the canoe. She died at the scene.

The girl lived in the municipality of Prainha and was visiting her grandparents on school holidays at the Caucu community, according to reports.

The death occurred on January 27.

Piranha attacks, while rare, can be deadly, particularly for children. A five-year-old girl died in an attack, also in Brazil, in 2012.