The swimming pool was closed to the public by the authorities until the circumstances of the tragedy were clarified.
An 8-year-old girl died this Saturday, March 23, in Houston, Texas (United States) after being apparently sucked into the pipe of a swimming pool located in the hotel where she was staying with her family, reports ABC13 Houston .
The girl, Aliyah Lynette Jaico, disappeared around 6 p.m. this Saturday.
The Houston police, firefighters and EquuSearch, an organization dedicated to searching for missing people, were mobilized to try to find her.
But the girl's body was eventually discovered in one of the hotel's swimming pools, sucked into an underwater pipe.
More than 13 hours of operation to recover the body
“This is one of the saddest cases we've seen in a long time,” said Tim Miller, founder of EquuSearch in Texas.
CCTV footage has been examined and shows the little girl in the water initially, before she disappears.
Her body had not returned to the surface even though these were the last images showing her alive.
The police then emptied the pool in order to examine the pipes using cameras attached to long poles.
It was through this that they made the macabre discovery.
They then took more than 13 hours to recover the girl's body, with the help of firefighters.
Tim Miller said there was "some sort of malfunction" and the child was pulled into the open pipe.
“She was stuck in there really tight.
I don’t think she decided to swim to see what was there,” added the founder of the research organization.
This faulty pipe was actually meant to drain the water and not create suction.
Aliyah's mother has filed a complaint, ABC13 Houston reported this Tuesday, and is seeking compensation of up to one million dollars from the hotel and the operators of the premises.