MOSCOW - A toddler was swept to his death down a sewage pipe in the western Russian city of Bryansk on Sunday after a pavement gave way while his mother was taking him for a walk.
Local police and emergency services told the ITAR-Tass news agency that a burst water pipe had caused the pavement above it to collapse under the mother, who was pushing her one-and-a-half-year-old son in a pram.
A passer-by was able to rescue the mother from the hole, the officials said, but the baby was swept away by the rushing water.
Russian infrastructure is notoriously unreliable, having suffered from a chronic lack of investment since the fall of the Soviet Union 20 years ago.
