The police, fire brigade and local civic body personnel pulled them out after much effort, but were declared brought dead to the hospital. (Representational)Five persons, including four from the same family, died while trying to rescue a calf from a well in Maharajganj area of Gonda district on Tuesday.
Police said while prima facie cause of death seems drowning, it is most likely they died from inhaling poisonous gas.
“According to information I received, a calf got trapped in an abandoned well on Tuesday afternoon. A person went to rescue the calf and after getting the calf out, he fell into the well. After that, four more persons entered the well and failed to come out,” Gonda District Magistrate Nitin Bansal said.
SHO (Kotwali) Alok Rao said that among the five dead, four people belong to the same family with two being brothers.
“The first person to go in to rescue the calf was 30-year-old Vaibhav Bari. While he brought out the calf, he slipped into the well which has around four feet of water. People present there kept calling Vaibhav, but after he did not respond, his cousin Rinku (40) went in. He also did not come out, so his younger brother, 22-year-old Chotu, went in. After he also did not come out, their 40-year-old cousin Vishnu went inside. A passerby Munnu Saini said he can help them and went inside and he too could not come out. All of them died. Then police were informed and we took out the bodies,” said the SHO, adding that the calf also died as it was having problem in breathing.
“Prima facie, it seems that all the five people inhaled some toxic gas in the well after which they became unconscious and drowned. Bodies have been sent for postmortem. We will know the cause of the deaths from the postmortem report,” he added.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath expressed grief over the deaths and announced a financial assistance of Rs 2 lakh for the family of each of the deceased, a statement issued by the state government said.