Four persons drowned in the Cauvery river and another was missing in separate incidents in Tiruchi and Thanjavur districts on Sunday.
With this, the number of people getting drowned in the Cauvery-Coleroon rivers in the last couple of weeks had gone up to 10.
Seven persons were on their way to Gunaseelam Prasanna Venkatachalapathy Temple from Ayyarmalai in Karur district. They stopped the vehicle at Manjakorai along the Tiruchi-Salem main road in the afternoon to take bath in the river.
Three of them – Sudeep Krishnan (33) of Bangalore, R. Parthiban (34) of Ayyarmalai and M. Sugumar (32) of Paramakudi – had gone deep into the water and were apparently caught in the strong currents, according to police officials and fire fighters.
Alerted by their friends and locals, a team of fire fighters from the Musiri fire station launched a search operation.
After a nearly two-hour long search, the fire fighters could only retrieve the bodies of the trio which were sent to the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital in Tiruchi for post mortem.
According to the fire fighters, the three apparently did not know swimming. The Vathalai police are investigating.
In Thanjavur incident, a youth drowned and another went missing while bathing in the Cauvery in Thirumangalakudi near Suryanarkoil on Sunday evening. According to police, Sabarinathan (35) and Vignesh (20) were swept away by the current of the river water.
Fire and Rescue Service personnel retrieved the body of Vignesh and were searching for Sabarinathan.
