A CHILD LOST: Mr Lim hugs his daughter's photograph. His grief-stricken wife Lona (second from right) is inconsolable. -- FRANCIS ONG

CLOSED-circuit television footage has shown that Anna Lim Pei Er, the five-year-old girl who drowned in the swimming pool at Rasa Sentosa Resort on Saturday, jumped into the water by herself.

According to the resort, she dived into the 1.3m-deep shallow end of the adult pool at 5.07pm.

At 5.11pm, the girl - clad in a bright blue swimsuit - was pulled out of the water by two young men who were guests at the hotel.

But what transpired during the intervening four minutes is not yet known to the family. They have not decided whether or not they want to view the footage in its entirety.

Mr Andrew Lim took his family to Sentosa last Friday to spend the day with his sister's family, who had rented a room at the resort from last Thursday to Sunday. It was Anna's first trip there.

VIDEO Goodbye Anna Anna Lim Pei Er was laid to rest on Monday at the Choa Chu Kang cemetery. The six-year-old had drowned in the swimming pool of Rasa Sentosa Resort just two days ago.   (2:10)

Having enjoyed herself, the little girl insisted that her parents take her back to the island a second time.

Slightly before 5pm, Mr Lim, 41, and his wife Lona, 27, took Anna and her three-year-old brother Anthony for a swim at the beach. However, when it looked like it was going to rain, the family headed back to the resort to swim.

In her excitement, Anna ran ahead of her parents, not heeding their cries for her to slow down. Soon, they lost sight of her in the huge crowd of hotel guests. Both Mr Lim and his wife circled the two hotel pools to search for her but did not find her.

When they finally found Anna, she was lying unconscious at the edge of the pool. She was pronounced dead at the Singapore General Hospital at 7.20pm.

This is the first such incident in the hotel's 14 years.

Mr Lim said he did not blame the two lifeguards on duty for not noticing Anna as it was very crowded at the pool.

'But I'm quite surprised. There were so many people swimming there, how could they not have spotted a little girl struggling in the water?' Mr Lim said.

He added that Anna was not a strong swimmer. She had asked for swimming lessons but he was too busy as a private tutor to arrange for them.

Yesterday afternoon, a group of 30 relatives and friends bade a tearful farewell to the gregarious and intelligent girl during a service at the Church of Saint Mary of the Angels.

'She was so humble even though she was bright. She wouldn't look down on or tease her friends who didn't know how to do their work,' said Mrs Cherie Yeo, the principal of the PAP Community Foundation Education Branch (Bukit Timah), which Anna attended.

Mrs Lim's sharp cries of grief punctuated the stillness of the air at Choa Chu Kang Cemetery as Anna's coffin was lowered into the ground.

carolynq@sph.com.sg

xinen@sph.com.sg