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A tragic schoolboy died after being sucked into a drainage pipe while on holiday at a water park swimming pool.

Tain Tseng, 12, was playing around in a swimming pool at the water park at the Qinlong Hot Spring Hotel in Xi’an, China, when he suddenly disappeared.

The youth was enjoying his last day of holiday but after he vanished, his frantic family came to a tragic conclusion.

His father Kung, 43, said: “I noticed he wasn't there and I instantly suspected the worst. Straight away I told staff that I thought maybe he had been sucked into the pipe but they insisted that that was nonsense and it was impossible.”

But when staff checked they found the boy's body inside the hole and had to drain the pool in order to gain access to the two metre deep pipe.

Children have died after being sucked into drainage pipes at Chinese swimming pools before, but after the latest incident the story was shared thousands of times on Weibo, the Chinese version of Facebook.

Most commentators repeated the complaint it was incredible in public baths that there were large holes not covered with grills, and even worse, that were not marked as potentially dangerous.