Four Honduran citizens among five dead in Ohio river drowning

Honduran authorities confirmed that four of the five people who drowned in Ohio’s Scioto River were Honduran citizens, deepening the toll of a night that turned a river outing into a mass fatality in central Ohio. The dead were two women and three men, and search crews continued looking into Monday after the incident unfolded Sunday night.

Authorities said six people had gathered at the river, and when one person entered the water and began struggling, the others jumped in to help. That chain of rescue attempts led to the drowning deaths in the Scioto River near Powell, Ohio, in Delaware County. NBC News said the group was on a fishing trip.

The Associated Press identified two of the victims as 33-year-old Jose Mario Pineda Dias and his 28-year-old wife, Marina Suyapa Regalado. The victims’ names and nationality turn the case into more than a local emergency in Ohio: it is a Honduran family tragedy, one that will reverberate through relatives at home and among Honduran communities in the United States as news of the deaths spreads.

The emergency began when a motorist spotted a “clearly distraught” child running along a state highway near the river on Sunday night, Delaware County Sheriff Jeffrey Balzer said. The child told the motorist his family was in the river, and the driver called 911. From there, deputies and rescue crews worked through the night and resumed the search on Monday, while authorities secured the area around the Riverside Dr Scioto Fishing Area, where signs were posted as investigators examined the site.

The scene carried a broader warning as well. The drowning came after weeks of sweltering heat had finally broken and amid extreme rain that fueled water rescues elsewhere in Ohio and across the country. In central Ohio, the river’s calm appearance concealed conditions that proved deadly once the first swimmer got into trouble and the rest went after him.