A dispute has arisen over a child who was admitted to intensive care after falling into a water-filled hole on the Jeddah Corniche, with the Civil Defense saying the aperture is part of a sewer and the mayoralty maintaining it is an irrigation water storage tank. According to her father, three-year-old Lamaar was playing at the Corniche close to a children's fairground play area north of the Border Guard Center when she suddenly disappeared from view. Passers-by directed him to a nearby hole. “The hole stank, and I reached in and felt something moving, and when I called for help a foreign man jumped in and about four minutes later pulled my daughter's motionless body out,” said Mansour Al-Zahrani. Lamaar was given first aid at the scene before being taken to hospital where she spent two days in intensive care. A Civil Defense report on the incident said that the hole was part of the sewer network, but the Mayor's Office has described that information as “incorrect”. “Officials inspected the site and determined that the hole was an irrigation water storage facility pertaining to agricultural land in the area,” said Ahmed Al-Ghamdi, head of the mayoralty's Media Center. “There are around three similar storage tanks in the Corniche area and they contain pumping equipment to distribute the water to nearby farmland. Storage tanks like these are used all over the world.” Al-Ghamdi said that the 1.5-meter-deep hole was covered and well away from the children's play area. Fencing had been erected around the site, he said. “The incident was due to the family's failure to keep an eye on their child, and the girl herself managed to remove the covering,” he said. “If the equipment in the tank had been working when she fell in it could have been a lot worse.” Al-Ghamdi added that the Mayor's Office had plans for the whole Corniche area following orders from the mayor to conduct maintenance on all irrigation water collection tanks. Hospital officials said that Lamaar was now in good health, while her father, citing the Civil Defense report, stated his intention to take the authorities responsible to court. “The mayoralty has failed to ensure children's safety by having sewer manholes in areas close to where children play without any warning signs,” Al-Zahrani said. “I want the persons responsible to be held to justice and compensation for the anguish the whole family has suffered.”
