Bodies of duo pulled out from Velachery pit on Day 5
It was around 7:30 am on Monday when four men fell into the pit after the soil under the container office and the generator room of the LPG bunk caved in and had a 60-foot fall into the pit
The construction site at Velachery from where the bodies of two persons were retrieved on Friday
CHENNAI: More than 100 hours after being buried alive under 60 feet of rainwater-filled three-acre pit, dug up for the basement of a proposed 12-storey building on Five-Furlong Road, the decomposed bodies of two men, R Jayaseelan (31) and S Naresh (21), were retrieved by the rescue personnel on Friday. Their family members, who had stayed put at the site in agony for five days, however, found it hard to come to terms with reality. While Jayaseelan was an employee with Green Tech Structural Constructions, Naresh was a staff at an auto LPG outlet adjoining the construction pit.
Chennai Police have booked four persons, including the owner of Green Tech Structural Constructions, T Sivakumaran, site supervisors Ezhil, Santhosh and the manager, Manikandan under section 304 (II) of IPC- culpable homicide not amounting to murder and have arrested Ezhil and Santhosh on Friday.
“Efforts are on to nab Sivakumaran and Manikandan expeditiously,” an official statement said.
It was around 7:30 am on Monday when four men fell into the pit after the soil under the container office and the generator room of the LPG bunk caved in and had a 60-foot fall into the pit. While two of them were rescued by firemen within hours, heavy rain on Monday marred the rescue of the other two as flood water filled the construction pit. With several parts of the city deluged NDRF and rescue workers were deployed to other parts of the city.
The efforts from the authorities for the first three days inspired no confidence among the family members as it took forever for the water to be pumped out. “If it had been a prominent person or a top officer in the government or a politician, we all know that no efforts will be spared,” screamed Jayaseelan, brother-in-law of the trapped electrical engineer (both share the same name) on Wednesday. In the next two days, over 50 feet of water was pumped out and on Friday morning, around 5 am, Naresh’s body was secured and around 2 pm, Jayaseelan’s body was secured.