5 girls drown in Dharmapuri pond

Dharmapuri: In a second major water tragedy in Dharmapuri in the space of a month, five girls including twin sisters drowned in a slushy pond while washing clothes near Pennagaram in Dharmapuri on Thursday.

“Death too did not separate them. They were born together, now they have died together,” sobbed M. Sekar, the inconsolable father of the twins, 14-year-olds, Rajeswari and Bhuvaneswari who met a watery grave along with three other girls on Thursday morning.

With schools closed for the quarterly holidays, nine girls, between 11 and 14 years of age, merrily hopped across to the pond on the outskirts of the Nalrampatti village to have a splash in the waters and wash their clothes around 10 am on Thursday

The heavy rains over the last few days had filled up the slushy pond to the brim. Not realising that the pond was deep and slushy, one of the girls jumped into the pond, after washing the clothes.

Within seconds, she was dragged the bottom of the slushy pond. Four other girls who tried to save their friend, also drowned. Their friends who watched the five girls drowning rushed back to the village and called their relatives.

Scores of villagers rushed to the pond, but by then, 16-year-old L. Anjali, her younger sister, Aruna, 11, their neighbours, S.Rajeswari and S.Bhuvaneshwari, and 11-year-old S.Saritha, had drowned.

The villagers fished out the bodies of the five girls. The bodies were taken to the Dharmapuri government medical college and hosptial for post mortem.

“My daughters and seven other girls in the village went to wash their clothes and have a bath. But five of them drowned,” says Sekar, the farm labourer who lost his twin daughters.

Their washed clothes came home, but the five girls did not, sobbed their relatives.

Barely a month ago, on August 30, six of a family from Chennai, who went on a coracle ride at Hogenakkal falls in Dharmapuri district, drowned when the coracle toppled.EndsPhoto