Quarry tragedy: Efforts on to find body of last victim

MADURAI: The search and rescue operation, which is being carried out by the NDRF personnel along with the support of Fire and Rescue Services personnel in the stone quarry at Adaimithippankulam in Tirunelveli, continues for the seventh day in a row.

In the tragic incident on the night of May 14, six men were trapped by a rockslide fortunately, two among them were rescued the next day and four other victims were left trapped beneath piles of rubble.

While the rescue personnel managed to trace and recovered the bodies of three victims from the debris, the rescue mission is still underway to pull out the sixth victim, sources said

According to Tirunelveli Superintendent of Police P Saravanan, the personnel have adopted a controlled explosive strategy to break through heavy rocks in the quarry to retrieve the body. On Friday, full rock blasting was done. A special team arrested two men including the quarry owner Chamber Selvaraj and his son Kumar-who went into hiding in the wake of the incident. So far, four men have been arrested.

Further, the SP said six special teams formed by the District Administration have launched inspections in quarries numbering 55 in the district to check for violations if any. N Vijayakumar, Deputy Director, Southern Region, Fire and Rescue Services Department is monitoring the search and rescue operation.

Thoothukudi District Fire Officer S Kumar said it was certainly a challenging task for the rescue personnel as they had been engaged in breaking different layers of rocks with masses ranging from 40 to a hundred tonnes to trace the last victim in the quarry.

“Apart from NDRF personnel, around 50 Fire and Rescue services personnel from Tirunelveli and its and Kanniyakumari were also engaged in the search operation, he said.

Tirunelveli DFO S Sathyakumar, Kanyakumari B. Saravana Babu, Tirunelveli ADFO Suresh Anand and Palayamkottai SFO Veeraraj were present, sources said.