According to surveys by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) between 2002 and 2005, death by drowning was most common among rural children.

The CDC said, citing a survey, "44 percent of injury deaths among children aged between one and 14 are caused by drowning".

Children in China's countryside frequently fall prey to other tragedies as well.

Three girls aged five, six and eight were sexually attacked by a village head in Pingguo county, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, while their parents were away at work in Guangdong province, Xinhua recently reported.

Four children died in a fire in Bingyang county of Guangxi on Feb 23.

Due to the large number of migrant workers who move out of their hometowns in search of jobs, children are mostly left behind with grandparents, who lack the ability to fully take care of them, said experts.

"This explains why so many rural kids are involved in accidents," said He Yi, director of the children's department with the women's federation of Anhui province.

There are more than 150 million migrant workers in China with 58 million children, including 40 million under the age of 14, who are left behind with senior members of the families, according to separate studies by the All-China Women's Federation and Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

"We need to pay more attention to those kids in order to prevent them from falling victim to avoidable accidents," said He, adding Anhui is one of the major provinces supplying migrant workers to the country.

"The safety issue aside, we should also put the rural children's education and emotional development high on our list," He added.