The Hindu : Front Page : 9 students meet watery grave

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Nov 28, 2005

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9 students meet watery grave

Special Correspondent

`Kaarteeka masam' outing ends on tragic note

VIJAYAWADA: Nine children of Ravindra Bharathi Public School in the city met a watery grave in Munneru on Sunday morning, turning the "Kaarteeka masam" picnic into a tragedy. Eight more children are reported to be missing.

Venue of the picnic spot was right under the Keesara Bridge in Kanchikacherla mandal on the National Highway No.9 (Vijayawada-Hyderabad).

Four hundred and thirty six students and 40 teachers went in seven buses from the city. Tragedy struck those who reached the Munneru banks in the first bus and rushed into the river for a dip, even before the arrival of the remaining five buses, according to students who returned to the city with grim faces.

Fishermen to rescue

While some of them were found drowning, the others raised an alarm. Fishermen of the village managed to rescue five of them. On hearing the screams of the children, a village lad, Murali, along with a couple of his friends, ran to rescue the drowning students.

The children said they ventured into the water as they thought it was shallow. But a whirlpool sucked them into the depths of the water. Some students grappled with the loose sand under their feet to wriggle themselves out, even as they lost their balance. As the word spread fast, villagers descended on the scene in large numbers. The Vijayawada Police Commissioner deputed his men from Ibrahimpatnam, while Nandigama DSP N.V. Naidu and several policemen reached the spot. Passers-by alerted EMRI's 108 emergency service.

Eight bodies fished out

Divers and swimmers began the search for the missing students. The rescue team fished out eight bodies and sent them to Nandigama Government hospital. The deceased students included B. Sampath Kumar, S. Hemanth Kumara Raja, Dundeswar, K. Anil, Sk. Sharif, K. Chaitanya, Mohan Manohar and Jonnalagadda Raghu. The identity of the ninth victim is yet to be established. The tragedy left the parents of the deceased boys heartbroken and benumbed.

The case of railway guard Prabhakar Rao and his wife was even more heartrending as they lost their son Anil, while another -- Vishnuvardhan -- is missing. Parents thronged the school in large numbers on hearing about the tragedy. They made frantic attempts to find out if their kids were safe. All other children were sent back to the city from Keesara in the buses and dropped at Andhra Kesari Tanguturi Prakasam High School. District Collector Navin Mittal, SP N. Chandramouli and in-charge Sub-Collector K. Bhanu Prasad personally supervised the operation of fishing out of the bodies.

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