At least 13 children died in a boat accident in the Ganga in Vaishali on October 13.
Safety measures commonly advised include limiting the number of passengers and providing life jackets.
Travel after dark on a river adds risk, as rescue is harder.
Boats should be checked for damage before crossing.
The cause of this accident has not yet been established.
The children were reportedly going to a feast, according to The Daily Jagran.
All those who died were aged 15 or younger, according to India TV, while some other reports mention an age as high as 16, so the reports are not fully consistent on ages.
Tejashwi Yadav, the Rashtriya Janata Dal leader and MLA from Raghopur, said 14 people had died, according to The Daily Jagran. The official count in the reports was 13.
Seven people were rescued and taken to the Nalanda Medical College and Hospital in Patna, and their condition was described as stable, according to the reports.
A team of the State Disaster Response Force worked with local divers, and the National Disaster Response Force was also deployed, according to the reports.
Villagers and local boatmen pulled people out of the water using traditional cots and ropes, according to The Daily Jagran.
Rescuers continued searching to determine whether anyone else was missing, according to India TV.
The cause of the accident had not been established when the reports were published.
An eyewitness told The Daily Jagran that the boat broke or gave way in the middle of the current, that officials had been told about its poor condition, and that the administration arrived about an hour after being alerted. These are the eyewitness’s claims, and the article carried no official response.
Other reports mention strong currents and possible imbalance as factors being examined, and one described the boat as overloaded, but these have not been confirmed by officials.
River Ganges at Patna (file image), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0