Tragedy struck a 30-year-old woman who was electrocuted while drawing water from a public tap at Mudukupatti here on Tuesday.
The enraged locals resorted to a road blockade on the Pudukottai main road in the morning for sometime condemning the electricity authorities and the civic body for not removing a damaged electric post located near the tap.
A mother of two children aged 11 years and eight years, the victim, R.Malarkodi, collapsed and died instantly after suffering electric shock when she was drawing water from the tap located close to the electric post, police sources said. Tangedco officials said the electricity leakage was from a service line (drawn from the electric post) which was linked to an earth pipe near the tap.
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The incident shook the residents of the locality. The victim hailed from a poor family and her husband Rajkumar is a push-cart driver. Locals said that they had already sought the replacement of the damaged post and had represented the matter both to the Tangedco and the Corporation.
A section of residents publicly vented their anger by resorting to a road roko on the busy Pudukottai main road for about 30 minutes condemning the Tangedco and Corporation authorities. The protest prompted the intervention of the police who pacified the agitators . The sources said the distance between the corporation tap and the electric pole was less than three feet.
Such a tragedy could have been avoided had the civic body not installed the water tap close to the electric pole or the electricity authority removed the pole close to the tap, say the sources adding that it was unsafe to have both at the same place.
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The body of the woman was taken to the Mahatma Gandhi Government Hospital where a post-mortem was conducted. The Cantonment Police have registered a case.
A senior Tangedco official said that all damaged poles in the locality would be replaced.