Three sisters have died after being buried alive by canola seeds on their family farm.

A family is in mourning and a community is reeling after three sisters, including twins, died in a harvesting accident on a farm in Alberta, Canada.

Catie Bott, 13, and her 11-year-old twin sisters Dara and Jana Bott, were playing in the back of a truck, which was being filled with canola seed, when they became submerged.

Two of the girls died at the scene, but one of the younger girls was flown to a local children’s hospital in a critical condition and died the following morning.

A local police sergeant read a statement from the family to reporters on Wednesday evening, the night after the tragedy took place.

“Our kids died living life on the farm. It is a family farm. We do not regret raising and involving our kids … on our farm,” the officer read. “It was our life.”

The family’s farm, known as Providence Acres, is in the tiny town of Winthrow, and the tight knit community has rallied around the girls parents and their surviving son.

The local pastor told the Edmonton Journal that he rushed to the property on the night of the accident, only to see paramedics trying and failing to revive the children.

“They are obviously devastated,” he said of their parents.

“We feel the impact of this loss in a substantial way. There is just a deep sense of loss and sadness.”

Emergency services said it was unclear how the girls became covered by the grain, but Marcel Hacaul of the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association said that such accidents were common.

He told CBC News that the tragedy was a reminder to rural communities about the importance of farm safety.

“Farms are getting bigger, everything is bigger, and it only takes 10 seconds to get engulfed or buried by grain. You don’t have near-misses anymore. You get the fatalities.”