Boy rescued from borewell with new device

 

A three-year-old boy was rescued from a 400ft-deep unused borewell at Sankarankoil in southern Tirunelveli district last week.

Harshan had fallen into the well while playing at his father’s farm. The rescue process began within two hours, but it was successful only because of a new device called Borewell Robot invented by a Madurai-based team of innovators. The device had an electronic hand and a built-in camera that detected the boy and lifted him out. Borewell experts also dug a parallel pit to widen the hole. Harshan came out alive and was declared stable at the hospital.

Unfortunately the same device failed to rescue Sujith, an 18-month-old boy who fell in a similar hole at Kedampalayam in Tiruvannamalai district about 200km from Chennai the following day.

The rescuers blamed the rocky terrain and the 175ft-deep borewell for their failure. They also promised to improve the device to handle larger emergencies.

Meanwhile all district collectors issued a statewide alert to spot unused borewells and warned rig operators to close dry wells after their work.

 

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Three engineers from Chennai drown in Goa

 

Three engineers from Chennai drowned at the Morjim beach in Goa last week.

The victims were part of a five-member team who had gone swimming. Lifeguards managed to rescue their two colleagues.

In a separate incident, Rajesh Kumar, a teenage student, drowned while swimming in the Puzhal lake in Red Hills area of suburban Chennai. Lifeguards who retrieved Suresh’s body also found the decomposed corpse of a middle-aged man in the same lake.

In Coimbatore, two 22-year-old college students drowned in a well at Sungam Bye Pass road. They were sitting on stone steps leading into the well when they slipped and fell.

Investigations are underway.

 

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Girl’s evidence used to convict killer father

 

In a landmark verdict, the Madras High Court convicted a man for the 2009 murder of his wife based on his 10-year-old daughter’s evidence last week.

The girl told the court that her father Chinnathambi was an alcoholic and often quarrelled with her mother suspecting her fidelity. On the day of her mother’s death, she had seen her parents leave for the fields. However within a few hours, she was told that her mother was found dead in a pool of blood inside a eucalyptus grove.

She blamed her father for killing her mother. The court accepted the testimony and rejected the defence lawyer’s claim that the girl was speaking under duress.

 

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Three dies in fireworks blast

 

Three workers died and five were injured in an explosion at a fireworks manufacturing unit at Adur Agaram in coastal Cuddalore district last week.

The unit functioned on the banks of a river and the accident occurred at 9.30am. Police suspect that the workers were executing a bulk order handling large quantity of explosives in unsafe conditions.

Meanwhile hundreds of firecracker factories in southern Sivakasi town struck work for a day to protest against the import of Chinese crackers and hike in explosives licence fee.

 

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Film director Dhanapal dies

 

Tamil director Guru Dhanapal, whose memorable films include Thai Maman, Maaman Magal and Unna Ninechan Pattu Padichen in the 1990s, died of cardiac arrest at Coimbatore on April 18.

He was 58 and is survived by wife and two daughters. Dhanapal had fallen into debt and probably gone to Coimbatore to seek loans. He suffered a heart attack and died in hospital.