Beas tragedy: Students had just minutes to react

Hyderabad: A video showing the tragedy in the Beas River which killed 24 students of VNR Vignan Jyothy Engineering College, has gone viral on the Web.

The short video, said to have been filmed by a local youth, shows the students standing on boulders, and scrambling for the river bank as they are caught unawares when the water is released.

Shouts and whistles warning the students can be heard in the video, but there was no hooter from the Larji Dam.

The strong current reached the students in a couple of minutes and completely overwhelmed them.

The terrain also added to the tragedy as some washed away students can be seen smashing into boulders.

“The terrain is very rocky and the river meanders through steep gorges and sharp rocks which are very dangerous,” A. Hari Prasad, a hydro electric project consultant of Himachal Pradesh said.

“The flow is not uniform. It can get strong and dams release water,” he added.

The video clip shows students standing on three rocks, including a larger group on a big boulder in the centre. People can be heard shouting to warn students when the water was released from the dam, but the current grew strong in a flash.

By the time they tried to get close to the bank, the smaller groups of students had already been washed away.

Some locals on the bank of the Beas tried to save them but the force of the water was too much.