A FATHER was feared drowned today after trying to save his seven-year-old son during a day out at a popular beauty spot.

Police divers resumed a search for David McHugh at the Blue Lagoon reservoir, Belmont who disappeared in the water yesterday afternoon.

Mr McHugh was in a play dinghy with his son Daniel when the accident happened at about 2pm.

According to a police spokeswoman, the dinghy capsized and the pair were thrown into the water.

She said: "The father tried to rescue his son, followed by passers-by. The child was saved by two people but the father was seen to submerge and not reappear. At this stage it is assumed he has drowned." Witnesses spoke of hearing a loud bang and it is thought the rubber dinghy may have burst.

Daniel, who was suffering from hypothermia and shock, was taken to the Royal Bolton Hospital where he was said to be comfortable. The boy's mother, Mandy McDonald, and his sisters Alice, three, and Amy, five, are thought to have witnessed the accident.

Volunteers from Bolton Mountain Rescue and North West Water used boats and canoes to search for 33-year-old Mr McHugh of Withcombe Place, Salford.

The North West Air Ambulance was called in to hover above the water. Police divers began searching the water at 6pm but the search was called off when darkness fell at about 9.30pm.

The reservoir, officially named Ward's Reservoir, is owned by Belmont Bleach Works. The incident is the latest in a string of accidents at the popular spot.

In 1967, 15-year-old schoolboy David Litherland Norton drowned and in 1980 a Bolton policeman's wife died when the car she was travelling in plunged into the water.

Seven years later, the body of 18-year-old Mark Nicholas Todd, of Chorley, was found in the water by police divers.