An eight-year-old boy drowned while trying to reach for a cellphone floating in water in a drainage pipe in Dobsonville, Soweto police said on Wednesday.

As the boy tried to reach for the cellphone, he fell into the water and was washed away. He was part of a group of five children playing near the drainage pipe on Tuesday, said Inspector Kay Makhubela.

Attempts by paramedics to resuscitate him failed and the boy was declared dead at the scene.

Dobsonville police had launched an inquest into the child's death, said Makhubela.