POWELL, Ohio — The skies were mostly clear and weeks of sweltering heat had finally broken as 33-year-old Jose Mario Pineda Dias and his 28-year-old wife, Marina Suyapa Regalado, set out with their two children for some leisurely fishing in an Ohio river. A second Honduran couple and an adult friend joined them.
A photo snapped by a passing boater sometime Sunday shows them apparently about thigh deep in the Scioto River, fishing poles in hand, standing around a big log. Calm as the surface appeared, the river was running high and fast, according to U.S. Geological Survey data. All five adults ended up drowning, authorities have said.
After the photo was taken, the group might have returned to shore. It is not quite clear. What Delaware County Sheriff Jeffrey Balzer has said is that one of the adults was struggling to swim in the river when several others went into the water to help. All five were swept under, he said.
The two women’s bodies were recovered Sunday and the three men’s bodies were found Monday.
On Tuesday, Honduran authorities confirmed that four of the five adults were Honduran citizens – Dias and Regalado and another married couple whose names have not yet been released. The fifth adult also has yet to be identified.
Flabia Zamora, director of consular affairs at the Honduran Foreign Ministry, told reporters Tuesday that they were working with U.S. authorities to bring their bodies home.
Zamora said that once U.S. officials have identified all the victims, Honduras will start the repatriation process, which could take at least a month.
She said the couple’s children are in the care of the state of Ohio and that arrangements will be made to reunite them with relatives in Honduras.
One of the children, a boy wrapped only in a towel, fled the riverbank in a panic and ascended to the road as the adults were drowning. According to a passing driver who called 911, “He was screaming, ‘Mama! Mama!’ and he was about to come out onto the road, and he was crying.” She said she was afraid he was headed onto a multilane road that snakes along the Scioto’s eastern banks.
Brenda Raya, who described herself as a relative, has launched a GoFundMe campaign to cover funeral and transportation costs, as well as childcare costs for the two orphaned children. She said they are 8 and 10.
“The emotional and financial burden is overwhelming, and we want to honor the memory of our loved ones while providing for the children left behind,” she wrote.
The drownings occurred along the O’Shaughnessy Reservoir. The reservoir and its 18 miles of shoreline are the property of the city of Columbus. According to the city’s Recreation and Parks Department, Jet Skis, tubing and swimming are not permitted in any city of Columbus reservoir.
Lt. Heather Byers, of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, said rivers can be deceptively calm on the surface.
“Even though the water doesn’t seem to be moving very quickly, you can still get swept away in very slow-moving water,” she said. “Also, since you can’t always see the bottom, you never know if you’re in, you know, you could be in 2 to 3 feet of water, what you’re comfortable standing in, and then the next thing you know you’re at 4 or 5 feet.”
Besides the currents and the depths, people can catch a foot between the rocks, snag their clothes on a branch or lose their balance on slippery algae.
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González reported from Honduras. Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus and John Raby in Charleston, W.Va., contributed to this report.
