Two school students, who went swimming in the Cooum river near Greams road in Chennai, drowned on Sunday. According to reports, Ritesh (12), Pradeep (8), Stephen (13) and Pradeep’s elder sister Jayalakshmi (12) went to the banks of the river to play. After playing for a while, Ritesh and Pradeep jumped inside the river for a swim. However, they started to drown.
Seeing them drown, Stephen jumped into the river to rescue them but he almost ended up drowning as well. Hearing Jayalakshmi cry out for help, a few residents who were nearby rushed to the river and rescued Stephen, whose hand was visible because of which residents could spot him. But, they could not trace Ritesh or Pradeep.
Since the residents couldn’t find the other two boys, they alerted the Tamil Nadu Fire and Rescue Services, which then fished out their bodies and sent them for autopsy. Residents of Mackay’s Garden area on Greams Road said that the wall which separates the residential area and the river was not complete and that anybody could access the river. They also urged the government of Tamil Nadu to finish construction of the wall.
Pradeep and Ritesh lived in Alagiri Nagar on Greams Road with their parents. A case has been registered in the Thousand Lights police station. The river was reportedly desilted recently, which made the river deeper.
In December 2018, dog carcasses were found on the banks of the river in the stretch adjacent to Mackays garden area, and residents have also complained that goats also tend to fall into the river and die due to the incomplete wall.
In August, the government of Tamil Nadu approved a project worth over Rs 2,000 crore to restore Chennai’s waterways including Buckingham Canal and Cooum river. The restoration project will mainly involve plugging of sewage outflows into these waterways and setting up of Sewage Treatment Plants.
Source: The News Minute