In an unfortunate incident, six persons including two women and three children have drowned in Pothanur village in Tamil Nadu’s Namakkal District on Tuesday. 40-year-old Saravanan, hailing from Pothanur village in Paramathivelur Taluk of Namakkal District, had gone along with his wife Jyothi (38 years), 10-year-old twin sons Deepakesh and Tharakesh, his wife’s friend Devi (30 years), her daughter Ashvika (7 years) and another relative Rohit, to take a swim in the Cauvery River that runs through Pothanur early on Tuesday morning. 

While six of them entered the waters, Saravanan’s young relative Rohit had stayed back on shore. According to the police, Saravanan and the others had entered deep waters and were trapped as a result. Help was brought in by Rohit who rushed to the nearest village but it was too late as the six of them began drowning.

While the police and firefighters have recovered five of their bodies, search is currently on to find 7-year-old Ashvika’s body. 

The bodies that were recovered have been sent to P Velur Government Hospital for post-mortem. A team of 20 including firefighters were involved in the rescue operation.

In July last year a family of five died due to drowning in Cauvery river near Mettur in Tamil Nadu’s Salem district. At the time of the incident all of them were bathing in the Cauvery water at Reddiyarpalayam, about 3 km away from Mettur dam.

They were then washed away due to flashfloods following the release of excess water from the Stanley reservoir of the Mettur dam. The authorities later sounded a flood alert in Dharmapuri, Salem, Erode, Namakkal, Karur, Trichy, Thanjavur, Tiruvarur, Nagapattinam, Cuddalore, Pudukkottai and Ariyalur districts.