The Chittoor District administration heaved a sigh of relief after despatching all the 20 bodies to their respective destinations in the early hours of Thursday.
While seven bodies were initially identified and handed over to the kin by Wednesday evening, the remaining were also given away, when the relatives kept pouring into the mortuary of Sri Venkateswara Ramnarain Ruia Government General Hospital beyond midnight.
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The formalities pertaining to documentation and identity verification were finished and the remaining bodies were handed over along with death certificates by around 4.30 a.m.
The second batch of 13 were identified as Harikrishnan, Venkatesan, Sivakumar, Lakshmanan of Arasanatham village, Velayudham, Sivalingam and Lakshmanan of the neighbouring Kalasapakkam village -- both coming under Chittheri Panchayat in Aroor taluk of Dharmapuri District; Govindaswamy, Chinnaswamy, Vellimuthu and Rajendran of Melkuppasanoor in Namiyampattu and Panneer Selvam of Melkavanoor in Kanamalai Panchayat, both in the Javvadhumalai area of Tiruvannamalai district.
The last one was identified as Sasi Kumar, the branch secretary of DMDK party belonging to Kalluppatti in Baithur Panchayat of Athur taluk in Salem District.
It may be recalled that all the seven identified on Tuesday in the first batch, namely, Moorthy and Munuswamy of Murugapadi, Sasikumar and his brother Murugan of Vettagiripalayam, Palani and Perumal of Kalasamudram and Mahendiran of Arjunapuram hailed from Tiruvannamalai District.
A sense of uneasy calm pervaded the Ruia mortuary area even after the last ambulance left, carrying the bodies and wailing relatives.
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