A 21-year-old man drowned on Mar. 28 early morning after going swimming in Serangoon Canal with a group of friends at about 5am, Lianhe Wanbao reported.

Shortly after getting into the waters, the victim disappeared.

When interviewed by Wanbao, the victim's father said that he was alerted by the police past 7am, whereupon he rushed to the scene.

He did not know that his son had gone swimming with his friends.

The father also told the Chinese daily that the victim's friends did not hear or see any sign of struggle during the incident.

When the group realised that the victim had gone missing, they started to search for him, but to no avail.

They then turned to the police for help.

Body retrieved from two-metre depth

In response to queries from Mothership, the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) said that they received a call at about 5:45am for water rescue assistance at the canal underneath the junction of Upper Serangoon Road and Buangkok Drive.

There was no sign of the victim when SCDF arrived.

Two divers from the Disaster Assistance Rescue Team (DART) were deployed to perform an underwater search, aided by an underwater Remotely-Operated Vehicle (ROV).

According to SCDF, the ROV allows underwater search operations to be conducted using sonar-imaging equipment that maps out underwater terrain.

This reduces risks for the divers due to poor visibility underwater, and also reduces search time.

The divers subsequently retrieved a body 6m from shore and at a depth of about 2m.

The victim was pronounced dead at the scene by an SCDF paramedic.

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