Write Comment     |     E-Mail To a Friend     |     Facebook     |     Twitter     |     Print

MANGALURU: A nine-year-old girl was swept away right in front of her mother’s eyes in the swollen Brahmakunda river, a tributary of river Chakra, in Kundapur taluk on Friday. The girl, who is feared have drowned, has been identified as Vismaya of Maranakatte, Chitthur Village.

 It was misfortune of the mother, Jalaja, who heeded to the child’s request to let her go while crossing the narrow wooden bridge, in spite of water flowing almost over it. No sooner the woman left the hand of the girl; she ran on the bridge, slipped and was washed away in the swift currents.

 The incident took place at 9am while the woman was taking the child to school. The victim was studying in Class III at the Maranakatte government school.

 Although the locals gathered immediately after hearing the news and put nets at a vented dam about a kilometre downstream, to prevent the girl from being washed away into the sea, they could not find the body. The current was strong as the area has been receiving heavy rainfall from Thursday. The villagers fished the waters till late afternoon, but in vain.

 The makeshift wooden bridge was constructed by the villagers after the government turned down their request for a concrete and a permanent bridge across the river, which is about 50 ft in width at that point. The bridge is constructed every year during monsoons to enable people cross the river. In the absence of the bridge, people will have to walk an extra half a kilometre to get to the other side of Maranakatte area, where the school is located. There is a plastic pipe installed as a railing on one side for people to balance while crossing the bridge.

 Kundapur tahsildar Gayathri Nayak said that the locals were warned not to use the makeshift bridge as it was not safe.

 BOY KILLED: In Bantwal, Mohammed Arshad, 6, from Pudu Village, who was seriously injured in a wall collapse on Thursday night, died before he reached the hospital. The victim, a Class II student at Sujeer Government Higher Primary School, was buried under the debris after a wall collapsed on him when he went to the toilet at around 9pm. The parents of the boy realized that something was amiss when they heard the noise and pulled him out of the debris.