Munnar: Two people were killed and two seriously injured after their jeep fell into a 200-ft gorge at Pothamedu, near Munnar, in Kerala's Idukki district.
The deceased are R Ragesh, 35, a native of Athirappilly in Thrissur district, and Pushapangadan, 63, from Sooranad in Kollam.
The condition of Kothamangalam native U Kuriokose, 52, and Kottayam native K Ajay, 30, was reported to be critical. For advance treatment, Kuriakose was admitted to a private hospital in Kochi and Ajay was shifted to the Kottayam Medical College Hospital.
The accident happened at Pothamedu, which is 4km from Munnar, around 10:30pm on Sunday. The accident victims were involved in the tunnel construction of the state electricity board at Kallar.
Ajay, the supervisor of the tunnel construction, was behind the wheels. They were returning to Kallar from Pothamedu when the driver lost control over the vehicle, leading to the accident.
People came to know of the accident only when an injured Ajay called the police control room from his mobile phone. As he contacted the Thiruvananthapuram control room, the information was passed on to the Munnar station.
Then additional SI M S Prakash, ASI D Radhakrishnan and civil police officers Venugopal Prabhu, C SHivakumar and Rafeeq rushed to the spot. Though they reached Pothamedu, they could not immediately spot the accident site in the deserted region. They got into the plantation and conducted searches.
Finally, it was the headlights that shone in the dark that helped the rescue team to reach the vehicle by 11:30pm. The jeep got completely wrecked, but its headlights continued to work. This helped the police reached the accident site.
A team of cops led by Munnar CI Reji M K, Adimali CI Anil George carried out the rescue operations with the help a group of fire force personnel from Munnar led by Station House Officer K P Baburaj.
The injured were taken out from the gorge by 1 pm. However, by then Ragesh and Pushpangadan, who had suffered injuries to their head, had died. After the autopsy at the Adimali taluk hospital, their bodies were handed over to relatives.
Ragesh was a bachelor.
Pushpangadan is survived by wife Anandavally, children Gireesh (Indian Army, Nagaland), Anish Kumar (assistant manager, Federal Bank, Kalayapuram) and daughters-in-law Aswathy and Daliya.
