The bodies of two teenagers whose boat capsized in a forest park lake in Northern Ireland were today recovered.
The victims were named later by police as 16-year-old Clare Steele and Rory McAlinden, aged 18. They were both from Castlewellan.
Superintendent Peter Loughins said while the third person, who managed to swim to safety, was not physically injured, he was obviously in a state of shock about what happened.
"Shortly after 11am police dogs and a civilian dog located in the water a body," he confirmed.
"In response to that the Mourne Underwater Search Team subsequently found the bodies of Clare Steele and Rory McAlinden."
He added: "We give our sympathy to the families involved at this time."
Superintendent Loughins said at this stage it had not yet been established what the young people were doing in a canoe in the area at the time.
"I think we cannot reiterate enough how dangerous it is to be going in and out of water if you are not trained to deal with these sorts of things," he said. "We would appeal to people not to do that."
Police, coastguard and fire service personnel were dispatched to the scene near a caravan park and a police helicopter using infra red equipment was also deployed.
The bodies were later recovered at around 11.30am as a crowd of people gathered at the scene of the tragedy.
Sinn Fein Assembly member Willie Clarke said the community of Castlewellan were numb by what had occurred.