Three people, including two young school girls drowned at the Podavur lake in Sunguvarchathiram near Sriperumbudur in Kancheepuram district on Sunday afternoon.
This is yet another instance of deaths by drowning in a water body, on a Sunday, in the city’s neighbouring districts.
Police said Saranya (11) and Rohini (12) of Podavur left their house around 11 a.m. to have a dip in the lake.
They were joined by 10 of their friends. The group had brought along used lorry tyres to float.
Young boys and girls often use these tyres to sit on them and stay afloat.
Saranya and Rohini, like the rest of the group, were frolicking in the water sitting on these tyres, when all of a sudden, they ventured further into the lake waters and fell off their tyres, Kancheepuram district policemen, who are investigating the case, said.
At that time, Munuswami (51) from the same village, who noticed them struggle, jumped into the lake in attempt to save them.
However, he too drowned after getting stuck in the slush on the lake bed, police said. Munuswami was employed with a private tyre manufacturing company in Tiruttani.
After news of the incident spread, residents of the village gathered at the spot. Meanwhile, a fire tender from Sriperumbudur too reached the spot. Divers, along with some expert swimmers from the village entered the lake and managed to pull out Saranya, Rohini and Munuswami ashore. They were then rushed to a private hospital, only to be pronounced dead on arrival.
Uneven lake bed
Podavur residents said the lake bed had turned very uneven because of the mining of mud done there when the lake is dry.
The bodies were sent to Sriperumbudur Government Hospital for post-mortem, Police said, further investigations were on. Drowning deaths, especially of school boys and girls have been reported during the weekends at lakes in Chennai’s neighbouring districts.
51-year-old man died while attempting to rescue the two struggling children
