Such is the seemingly endless sequence of sensational news events in this country, the tragic death of a seven-year-old girl, Samoy Pryce, in Comfort district, south of Mandeville in Manchester, last Tuesday, may well have passed under the radar for many people.

The child, who was apparently unsupervised at a relative’s home, reportedly drowned when she attempted to retrieve a slipper from an open rainwater catchment tank, lost her balance, and fell in.

Sudden death is always especially heart-rending. It becomes much, much worse when the victim is a child.

A resident made the obvious point that the water tank should have been properly covered to prevent any such mishap.

“…We need to take some steps to deal with safety because even adults can make a wrong step and fall in it…This tank, it has to be covered now…” he said.

We can all agree with that grieving resident. The trouble, though, is that none of this is new. As far back as any of us can remember, people — children as well as adults — have been coming to an untimely end in rainwater catchment tanks, carelessly built without covering. Or, as is often the case, covering dismantled in storms and never replaced.

With each such happening, people at local and higher levels speak of the need to do something about the problem, only for it to become yet another nine-day wonder.

Our reporter, Mr Kasey Williams, reminds that three years ago, almost to the day, 19-year-old Miss Nardesha Smith, who was pregnant, fell into an open water tank and drowned while seeking cover in bushes during a gun attack that left a young man dead. That incident happened in Settlement, close to Comfort.

A quick check in the Jamaica Observer online archives unearthed other similar tragedies in Manchester over the last decade.

On September 25, 2013, for example, seven-year-old Rivaldo Dwyer drowned in an open, concrete tank on Levy Lane in Mandeville.

Reports at the time suggested the child lost his life after attempting to swim in the tank located in his yard.

Three years and nine months later at Bottom Albion, a few miles away from Mandeville, we found residents mourning the death of five-year-old Dwight Jones, who also drowned in an open tank.

We hasten to make the point that doing away with rainwater catchment tanks is not the solution. That’s for the simple reason that in many deep-rural communities, the harvesting and storage of rainwater is a necessity to sustain life. All too often there is no other provision.

In any case, farmers use stored water to irrigate their crops.

The easy answer is for the authorities — be they local, at central government level, or both — to make it absolutely mandatory that such tanks are covered by property owners. Appropriate laws and regulations, complete with relevant punishment for non-compliance, should be in place.

The authorities should also ensure that community tanks, operated by local authorities, are properly secured.

Ensuring rainwater catchment tanks are properly secured is a matter of life and death. Our leaders need to make sure it happens. Surely we are not asking too much of them?