Will it be watery burial for them?
Hyderabad : Rescue teams along with divers and rafters thoroughly scoured the Beas River at Mandi in Himachal Pradesh but made a little headway in tracing the missing 19 students of VNR Vigyan Jyothi Institute of Engineering and Technology and a tour guide who were washed away due to sudden discharge of water from the reservoir of Larji Hydropower Project on Sunday evening.
The rescuers managed to recover only one body which was identified as that of Debashish Bose, a resident of Bagh Amberpet. The dead body of the Debashish Bose arrived at Shamshabad airport at around 7 pm on Tuesday evening.
Bodies of four students including three girls and a boy were recovered yesterday by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams.
Over 550 personnel from various teams including paramilitary, SSB and NDRF and also 60 divers carried out search operation in turbulent waters of Beas River from the accident spot Thalaut and Pandoh Dam, Jaideep Singh, Commanding Officer, NDRF said.
Over a dozen boats, local divers and also rafters assisted the rescuers in the operations. Fencing and nets were also near the Pando dam to ease the rescue operations, he added.
The volume of water in Pandoh Dam was very high but the flood gates cannot be opened as there is a threat of the bodies being washed away, officials said.
Devesh Kumar, District Magistrate, Mandi said, "A system of protocol is already available to the dam authorities but I am sure that some deficiencies must be there... I would say that adequate number of signboards are a necessity on the stretches" where the accident took place.
Telangana state Home Minister Nayini Narasimha Reddy who reviewed the rescue operations on Tuesday asked NDRF vice-president Marri Shashidhar Reddy to send more forces to carry rescue operations.
'The decision of taking action against V N R Vignana Jyothi Institute of Engineering and Technology management would lie with State government and we are now concerned on finding the missing students,' Reddy told media.
Balanagar DCP AR Srinivas who stayed back at the accident site said that rescue operations were on to find the missing students and there were huge number of personnel involved in searching the students.
He said that a meeting was also held with officials who participated in the rescue operation at Mandi. Manned search was being done for 16 km in the river, he said. Mandi Additional SP Kuldeep Chand Rana told 'Only five bodies were recovered in the rescue operations, including two male and three female bodies including the dead body of Debashish Bose on Tuesday.
Rescue operations were going on in large scale and we hope we will recover more by Wednesday.' 'The body of Debashish was found 600 meters below the water. It was muddy and divers trying their best,' he added.
The NDRF officials at rescue operations claimed that the dam was filled with water and it has become necessary to release the water to avoid further damage to the villages located nearby the dam. It was also reported that it would take four more days for the bodies to float in water due to the low water temperature.
However, the kin of the missing students alleged that the college management had not informed them about the site seeing and they were told that it was only an industrial tour. 'The management misguided us and holds the responsibility of the death of all the students.
The plan of the college management did not have any industry named and they took the students for site seeing,' said M Srikanth, brother of the missing student Mittapalli Akhil. Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh said, 'We have announced a compensation of Rs 1.5 lakh to next of kin of each victim and also made arrangement for sending the bodies of the victims and also provide all possible help to the affected families.'
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday announced Rs 5 lakh compensation each for the families of the engineering students killed in Himachal Pradesh.
Naidu made the announcement before the Telangana government came out with a package to assist the families of the victims.
Meanwhile, the Shimla High court on Tuesday after observing the reports said that the officials of the Hydro power project failed to blow the warning siren before releasing the water and ordered the officials to submit a final report on the incident by August 16.
Union Civil Aviation Minister Pusapati Ashok Gajapathi Raju and state minister P Narayana who arrived at Kullu on Monday to monitor rescue operations, have stayed back.
News Posted: 11 June, 2014
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