Two pedestrians were electrocuted when they accidentally stepped over a snapped power line submerged under pooled stormwater on a narrow street at Chakka near the international airport early Monday following a night of heavy rain.
Sub Inspector of Pettah, S. Sabu, identified the deceased as Radhakrishnan, 70, and Prasanna Kumar, 55.
A newspaper boy had seen the bodies slumped in the water-logged lane at around 5.45 a.m. and alerted the police. The police who reached the spot noticed the broken power cable dangling from a nearby utility pole into the water below. They immediately shut the road off from vehicular and pedestrian traffic and informed the local Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) authorities who switched off power to the locality.
K. Sreekumar, the local ward councillor, told The Hindu that the newspaper agent had averted more deaths by alerting the authorities. Scores of people, including himself, used the lane in the morning for their daily exercise and had averted death narrowly.
The by-road usually gets crowded by 6.30 a.m. on weekdays with school students and office-goers clogging the narrow cemented path. A surveillance camera installed by the resident's association had captured the grim incident.
‘KSEB officials responsible’
S. Anil Kumar, councillor of neighbouring Pettah ward, held KSEB officials at the Beach Circle responsible for what he described as an avoidable accident.
He said the local officials appeared not to have responded to power outage calls from the neighbourhood where the deaths had occurred. They did not investigate what had caused the power failure in the first place, he alleged.
Chief Engineer (Distribution, South), K. Mohan, said heavy rains that lashed the city early Monday had caused the line to snap. He said a falling tree branch was responsible for the fracture.
He said break had occurred early in the raining morning and had come to the notice of Beach Circle engineers only after the police had alerted them of the tragedy. The KSEB power grid automatically alerted engineers of breaks in 11 KV lines. However, the splintering of low tension lines that supplied households was more challenging to detect. He said sea salt carried by the wind routinely eroded power lines in the beach locality.
The police conducted an inquest into the deaths and have registered a case. Mr. Sabu said the police were investigating if there was any oversight or negligence on the part of the KSEB authorities.
Mr. Sreekumar said Radhakrishnan was a retired carpenter who lived on a meagre income as a helper in a nearby temple. He was out for exercise. Prasannakumari, a resident of Nedumangadu, had come over to spend the weekend with her daughter and was returning home early when the tragedy struck.
Forensic doctors were scheduled to autopsy their bodies at the Thiruvananthapuram Government Medical College Hospital The Government has announced an ex-gratia compensation of ₹10 lakh each to the families of the victims.