7 girls drown in Cuddalore river: The factors behind the preventable tragedy

The drowning of seven young girls - aged between 10 and 19 - near a check dam built across the Gedilam river in Cuddalore on June 5 has raised questions about the dangers of over-mining sand from river beds. The girls had gone to the river to bathe in some water accumulated in near the river; and would have been unaware of a deeper pit, that some environmental activists believe was left behind due to the neglect of sand miners who did not bother to refill it once they were done mining. While two girls drowned in the water first, and the rest of the girls died while trying to rescue them, police say. And though the locals alerted fire and rescue personnel, who rushed to the spot, the girls could not be saved. The personnel retrieved the bodies and sent them to  Cuddalore District Hospital for postmortem.

TNM spoke with several activists, environmentalists, and local people to understand the factors that potentially led to this mishap. While some blame the lack of proper sanitation and toilet facilities compelled the girls to go to the river, activists suggest that illegal sand mining may have made them more vulnerable to drowning.

Lack of toilets

When TNM talked to Amarnath, the father of Monisha, one of the girls who died in the accident, he said, "While constructing the check dam in Kuchipalayam, officials dug the Gedilam river bed for the sand to use in the construction. After the construction work was over, the officials didn't take any steps to close that pit they had dug. My daughter, Monisha, went with other girls to bathe in the river. Two girls struggled to get out of the deep water, and my daughter and the others who went to rescue them also drowned."

He added that most of the 550 families in Kuchipalayam do not have proper toilet facilities except for a few, which is why many village residents use the river bank for open defecation. Amarnath suspects that on June 5 too, the girls would have gone to relieve themselves and take a dip in the water when they died.

Some of the local residents revealed that apart from the companies that come to mine sand there, some of the people residing in the nearby villages also depend on the river and river sand for livelihood. “The state government took several steps to monitor the river sand mining. But, still, bullock carts are being deployed to dig the river beds for the sand. The local people, too, fetch the river sand on two-wheelers during the night, and sell it. Such incidents are rampant here. But people never talk about this. Also, 13 villages located on the banks of Gedilam river lack sanitation facilities and people defecate on the river banks,” said one of the local residents under the condition of anonymity.

Funeral of the girls who drowned in Gedilam River (Special Arrangments)

Illegal sand mining practices

While there M-sand or manufactured sand (artificially made by crushing hard stones) is being used in some places as an alternative to river sand, the former has not fully replaced the latter in construction. Due to persisting demand for river sand, Cuddalore-based geologist, Venkatesan Selvaraj, said that the state government permitted quarry owners to extract sand up to a particular amount. “However, mining industries have never followed government guidelines. Now, in the delta region, the depth of the many rivers is deeper than the estuaries,” he said, elaborating that this increases risk of accidents like drowning as people are not aware of the increased depth due to unfilled mining pits.

“People dig rivers bed in the summer for two reasons: construction work, and to widen and deepen the bed to not get affected by the flooding during the monsoons. The latter is harmless to the environment and saves lives and crops. The former is harmful in many ways. Apart from such direct incidents of death, over-mining sand causes degradation of microorganisms, saltwater intrusion, increase in the backwater levels in the rivers, and loss of livelihood of farmers due to increased water salinity rendering it unfit for irrigation, among others,” he added. “Clay layers in the riverbeds and banks act as barriers and stop the salt water from getting into the groundwater network. But repeated sand pilferage would deplete such clay layers and it would lead the high-density saltwater mixing with the groundwater. The impact may not be felt overnight, but after a decade, when it causes serious health issues. Skin and hair color will change if they are exposed to the salt permeated air and consumption of such water leads to a higher level of salt content in our bodies,” Venkatesan explained.

The Tamil Nadu government gave the green light for river sand to used in the constructions after a decade, earlier this year. The Department of Water Resources gave environmental clearance to 16 quarrying companies that use lorries, and 21 companies that use bullock carts to operate.

G Sundarrajan of Poovulagin Nanbargal, an environmental volunteer group, had sought all political parties and organisations to pay attention to incidents such as the one in Cuddalore in his series of tweets, to prevent such mishaps in the future, on June 06. "This is not the first time something like this happened. Last month, a young man died in the same river but at a different location. Every month, people drown in the rivers and we assume the incidents happen because people don't know how to swim against the river current. But that is not true. In the past years, especially during the summer, JCBs and earth-mover machines have been seen on the banks of every single river that is running across the state to mine sand for construction. When the river flow begins during the monsoon, miners leave pits without any consideration for the repercussions. The government stopped giving tenders for new sand miners since the earlier ones exploited the resources by over-mining. If there was no over-mining, why would there be a pit with a depth of 15-30 feet, where the girls drowned?" he asked. He requested the Tamil Nadu government to take necessary steps to avoid such incidents.

"A Water Resources Department report said the check dam is supported by the sand that was taken from the bunds, not from the Gedilam river bed," said Cuddalore Collector Balasubramaniam. "As a part of precautionary actions, we have released circulars to all the tahsildar offices to install warning boards across the district. I've asked all Block Development Officers to ensure the proper toilet facilities in each household and public toilets in every village in the district," he added.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin condoled the deaths and announced a solatium of Rs 5 lakh to the family of the deceased from the Chief Minister's relief fund. On Monday, June 6, while speaking to the media at Edappadi, AIADMK Co-coordinator and former Chief Minister, Edappadi K Palanisamy, urged the state government to increase the solatium to Rs 10 lakh for the families of the seven girls.