The rescue team that was involved in a search operation to locate two persons who were trapped at a caved-in construction site have retrieved the bodies on Friday. The Chennai City Police have filed a case against four persons and arrested two persons for the accident, which occurred on Monday.
Owing to Cyclone Michaung-induced heavy rain, the construction site located on Five Furlong Road near Velachery had caved in, resulting in the collapse of a generator room of a fuel pumping station as well.
A senior official of the Chennai City Police said the rescue team — comprising the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Fire and Rescue Services and machineries — was engaged in extricating the bodies of S. Naresh, 21, and R. Jeyaseelan, 31, using a 20 horsepower motor, an all-terrain crane and an excavator. The body of Naresh, who was working as an attendant at the fuel pumping station, was retrieved around 4.45 a.m., and the body of Jayaseelan at 2 p.m.
Relatives grieve after a construction site caved in, in which two people are feared dead, on the Five Furlong Road-Velachery Main Road junction, in rain-hit Chennai on December 8, 2023 | Photo Credit: PTI
The bodies were sent to the Government Royapettah Hospital for post-mortem, and would be handed over to the relatives later, the official said.
Meanwhile, the Guindy Police altered the ‘man missing’ complaints that were initially filed for both to culpabale homicide not amounting to murder against four persons, including Sivakumar, the owner of Green Tech Structural Constructions of Anna Nagar, and construction supervisors — Ezhil, Santosh and Manikandan — for the accident. While Ezhil and Santosh have been arrested, the police are on the lookout for Sivakumar and Manikandan.
The City Police, along with the Fire and Rescue Services personnel, had on the day of the accident rescued two other persons — G. Navin and Seetharaman.
