In a heartrending incident, six schoolchildren drowned in the Manair river in Rajanna Sircilla district on Monday afternoon. Bodies of five children were fished out during the rescue operations and the search for one more is still continuing.
According to locals, nine students, all residents of Amba Bhavani Colony and Rajiv Nagar in Sircilla town studying in eight and ninth classes in Kusuma Ramaiah Zilla Parishad Government High School, went for swimming at the check-dam of Manair river situated in Nehru Nagar on Monday afternoon. While six students jumped into the river to enjoy swimming, three others refused to join them.
In the tragic incident 6 students were feared #drowned in #Manair, who went for swim, but didn’t know how to swim.
— Surya Reddy (@jsuryareddy67) November 16, 2021
The bodies of Ganesh, Venkata Sai, Ajay, Rakesh, Kranthi Kumar, were retrieved, search operation is on to locate the other child Manoj.#Sircilla #Telangana https://t.co/VGFw7k4R9k pic.twitter.com/nesT4yt3us
The six victims who were identified as Kolipaka Ganesh, Konga Rajesh, Singam Manoj, Jadala Venkata Sai, Theegala Ajay and Sriramula Kranthi, unaware of the depth of water, entered into the water and drowned one after the other. The three students who did not resort to swim – Kota Aravind, Diddi Akhil and Vasala Kalyana – stayed at the shore.
After seeing their friends drowning, the three ran to their houses and informed their parents, who in turn, informed the local police officials.
The police officials with the help of expert swimmers started immediate rescue operations. But, as it was raining heavily in the evening and was dark, the rescue team was able to find only the body of Kolipaka Ganesh (14) and stopped the rescue operations on Monday.
After continuing the rescue operations on Tuesday morning from 4 am they found four more bodies of Rakesh, Manoj, Venkat Sai and Ajay. The body of Sriramula Kranthi is yet to be traced.
