Degulwadi was knocking on disaster’s door

Narayankhed: The Sunday night horror which rocked Degulwadi and Chowkanpally villages of Kangti mandal, claiming 7 innocent lives and injuring 10 more, could have easily been avoided, had the authorities taken appropriate action at the right time.

At around 10 pm on Sunday night, a lorry ferrying a marriage party which was returning to Ram Singh Thanda (hamlet) of Chowkanpally gram panchayat (the bride groom’s village), came in contact with 11 kV live wires. There were 45 people on the lorry.

Alerted by the wires, the people in the lorry asked the driver to stop but he didn’t pay heed to them and only stopped the vehicle after the cabin of the lorry came in contact with the live wires. Two persons who were sleeping on top of the cabin woke up at the commotion, and caught unawares, came in contact with the wire and were electrocuted in seconds.

The driver immediately jumped out of the vehicle and ran away. As the people seated behind panicked, one of the passengers jumped off the truck and held a girl to save her, unwittingly creating an earthing that led to a high power shock in the iron body of the vehicle.

“The shock was so intense that people were thrown out of the vehicle like they were some weightless things,” said Yuvraj (15), one of the survivors who lost his father Ramulu Rathod (40) in the melee.

A few logs of wood which were inside the lorry turned out to be the life-saver for the few people sitting on them as they did not feel the shock. One such survivor was Vittal, a 5th class boy who slept away through the entire episode oblivious to the mayhem around him. “When I woke up, I thought some demon had attacked us. Everything was over,” he told The Hans India, innocently.

The havoc continued for more than 5 minutes, until Jyothi Shivaji, husband of the Sarpanch of Degulwadi, along with Jadav Shivaji, MPTC, raised the live wires using a long stick and freeing the passengers. A driver was immediately called from within the village as a back-up. But for the timely intervention of the duo, many more lives would have been lost in the tragedy.

The injured were taken to Narayankhed Government Hospital while those who were in a critical condition including Rukka Bai (40) were taken to Yashoda hospital in Hyderabad. While the incident happened in Devyanaik Thanda of Degulwadi gram panchayat, all those who perished were from the nearby hamlet of Ram Singh Thanda.

The bride and the groom were travelling behind in a DCM van. Alerted by the accident, they halted. However, Shiva, the bride groom, lost his father Danji Ram (50), his brother Srinivas (17) and his sister Kissa Bai (21).All the victims were closely related to the bride groom’s family.

The locals told The Hans India that they had approached the TRANSCO officials several times regarding the hazardously low level of electric wiring. The road lies between two poles which are connected through live wires.

As per TRANSCO norms, the gap between the surface of the road and the wires should not be less than 7 meters (23 feet approx). However, in this case, the gap was hardly 15 feet. The poles were planted in a low lying position, while the road was at an elevated position.