RESIDENTS of August Town in St Andrew late last evening raced against time to find nine-year-old Kyle Richards, who was reportedly swept away by flood waters in the community.

The boy, a student of Hope Valley Experimental School in the parish, reportedly got into difficulties as he made his way home from school following persistent afternoon showers.

Councillor for the Papine Division of the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation Venesha Phillips told the Jamaica Observer yesterday that residents observed the child struggling in raging waters in a gully and raised an alarm.

The incident occurred shortly after 3:00 pm.

Up to press time last evening, members of the Jamaica Fire Brigade and scores of residents were out searching for the boy.

“It is a heartrending search, to be honest,” Phillips stressed. “We’ve just fanned out across the community, the entire stretch of the channel, to see if we can find him. Everybody is out and we’re just trying to search.

“The water was a bit high before but now we are able to check the channel to see if we can locate him. At this point, there is no light in the area of the gully. So the darker it gets the harder it is going to be for us to search,” the councillor said.

– Kimone Francis