Quarry tragedy: Bodies of all the four victims found

Quarry tragedy: Bodies of all the four victims found

Bodies of all four victims of the quarry tragedy at Vengola near here were found by the rescue team on Wednesday evening. The deceased were identified as Santhosh, 46, of Koroth house, Valayanchirangara; Vijayan, 47, of Cherukarakkudy house, Valayanchirangra; Mohanan, 49, of Kallarackal house, Nellad Vittor; and Ramakanth Pattamaji, 26, from Odisha. The rescue operations took nearly 35 hours to complete. Santhosh was the subcontractor of the granite quarry. Rescue workers had blasted a boulder, weighing nearly 40 tonnes, in the evening in the hope that the victims could be rescued. Two Hitachi 110 excavators, which were used on Tuesday, were replaced by Hitachi-200 to expedite the rescue work carried out by police, fire force and the natives of the area. Quarry and crusher units association in the locality also supported the effort. The mishap had taken place at 8.40 am on Tuesday at the quarry owned by Elavunkudy Rajan. On Tuesday morning, workers were cutting off granite with the help of a compressor when boulders fell on them from a height of about 100ft and crushed six of them. Two of them escaped with serious injuries but four got buried under it. The injured, Maneed Kallumkoottathil Raju Varghese, 39, driver of the tipper lorry, and Shibu, 20, a native of Odisha, were admitted to the hospital and they are reportedly under treatment. Raju’s legs are said to have been crushed under a boulder. The rescue operations were led by RDO S Shanawas. According to him, heavy machines or cranes to pull up the boulders could not be deployed as the path was too narrow 

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