Four persons were killed and four injured when a car in which they travelling went out of control near Vijayagopalapuram, about 10 km from here, in the early hours of Saturday.
According to police, the accident took place at about 3 a.m. and the vehicle, on its way to Chennai from Tiruchendur, went out of control, swerved from the NH 45 and fell into a six-foot deep trench.
Anandhi, one of the passengers, managed to extricate herself from the totally damaged vehicle and call out for help.
She alerted people in the vicinity, most of them employees of a private industrial unit that was across the road.
The victims included R. Senthil, (39), Assistant Advertisement Accounts Officer, The Hindu. He was the son of N.P. Ramajeyam, a former DMK MLA and former general secretary of The Hindu Office and National Press Employees’ Union.
The others were S. Ramesh (38), a head constable from Villupuram district, L. Loganathan (45) and his wife Renu Lakshmi (41) of Aynavaram. Those injured are Kavitha (wife of Senthil), Anandhi (wife of Ramesh), Karan Prakash, (son of Loganathan) and Srinivasan, driver of the vehicle.
All of them have been admitted to the District Headquarters Hospital here and are said to be out of danger.
Police said Ramesh was at the wheel when the mishap occurred.
They were on a pilgrimage from Chennai. They visited Palani on Thursday and Tiruchendur on Friday. Padalur police are investigating the case.
