Eight days after a six-year-old girl was washed away by an open drain and went missing from HB Colony in Visakhapatnam, her body was finally found near the Dibbalapalem beach in Bhogapuram mandal of Vizianagaram district, roughly 50 km from the port city.

Sai Lavanya Aditi was a student of a private school, and stepped into the drain at around 6 pm, when she was getting into a car after her tuition near Dr. V.S. Krishna Government College in HB Colony.

The open drain, which connects to a major drain some distance away, was inundated following heavy downpour in the evening and so the girl may not have noticed it.

This was followed by massive search operations undertaken by both the family and the government.

The family had earlier opened a Facebook page titled 'Finding Aditi Missing From Visakhapatnam Since September 24,' asking people to share any credible information to aid rescue operations and even offered a reward for any leads.

Aditi's father identified the decomposed body that washed ashore while the police said that the girl may have died within minutes after she fell into the drain.

The strong currents due to heavy rains, may have led the body to drift so far off the Vizag coast. An autopsy will be conducted at KG Hospital in Vizag on Friday.