An inquest has ruled the deaths of two sisters who went paddling in Eryri were accidental.

Hajra and Haleema Zahid died after getting into difficulty in the Watkin Pools near Nant Gwynant last June.

The pair, originally from Pakistan, had moved to the UK in January 2025 to study for business degrees at the University of Chester.

The Caernafon hearing was told that the sisters, who lived in Rotherham, were among a group of five university friends - including three men - who had travelled to North Wales.

After visiting Llandudno, they travelled to Eryri, where Hajra and Haleema split away from the group to go paddling upstream for religious and private reasons.

When the men called out for the sisters around half an hour later, they did not respond to their calls.

After reaching the pools, they found Hajra, a married mother-ot-two, face down in the water while Haleema was nowhere to be seen.

Later, two members of the Llanberis mountain rescue team found Haleema near the waterfall.

Both women, who were fully clothed at the time, were pronounced dead at the scene.

Sarah Riley, assistant coroner for North West Wales, told the hearing it was not possible to confirm how and why they ended up in the water.

She said one possibility was that one or both women fell from an "exceptionally slippy" slab of rock, which had also happened to the mountain rescue volunteers.

But Ms Riley was satisifed that "neither sister went to swim or enter parts of the pool that would put them out of their depths in the water."

Recording verdicts of accidental death, the coroner said it was "an extremely tragic case" and sent her "sincere condolences to their friends and family".

She added that swimming and wild swimming in pools is dangerous and urged caution to the public.

Following the deaths last June, the vice chancellor of Chester University said the community was "in mourning for the tragic loss of" the sisters.

Professor Eunice Simmons added: "They touched the lives of many here at Chester – their friends, the cohort on their course and the staff who taught them – and they will be deeply missed."