Students drown in estuary

JAKARTA: Fifteen girls, all students of a Moslem high school, drowned in an estuary on the southern coast of Central Java while looking for fish during a biology class project.

The victims, among 167 students on a three-day field trip held by their school, had been part of a group asked to catch some fish for the biology class at a shallow estuary.

The 15 students inadvertently fell into a deep part of the estuary at the confluence of two rivers and drowned, the daily said.

The school's biology teacher, who was supervising the trip, is being questioned by police, it said.