‘Wall crashed after a thud; all in 3 houses buried alive’
COIMBATORE: A pall of gloom descended on the ill-fated village in Mettupalayam as people grieved over the major tragedy wiping away the lives of their neighbours on Monday.
The survivors couldn’t believe their eyes as the houses of their neighbours were reduced to a rubble overnight and so many persons had lost their lives.
“It was raining non-stop all through the night. I woke up to a loud noise around 5am and rushed out to find a fallen compound wall on the three collapsed tile-roofed houses. The inmates of the three houses were all buried under the debris. I immediately informed the Fire Service personnel and Mettupalayam police,” said Padmanaban, 25, a resident of the locality.
Further, Padmanaban said that the people in their locality opposed the textile shop owner raising a huge compound wall for his house. However,
local officials failed to take any action.
Following the incident, the textile shop run by Siva Subramanian, whose compound wall fell resulting in the mass death of people remained shut in Mettupalayam. The police have been deployed in front of his shop as a precautionary measure.
It was a pitiable sight at the Mettupalayam GH, where the bodies of 17 deceased persons were brought for a post-mortem. Due to shortage of space in the mortuary, the bodies of few persons were kept in the open despite rains, triggering anger among the public.
Fortunately, a woman and her three children survived the tragedy after Gurusamy, a painter, who was among those killed in the mishap, had sent them away to a relative’s house in Pollachi the previous night for a function. “As they were away, the woman and her two children had survived,” said the neighbours.