CHENNAI: An eight-year-old boy died after he slipped and fell into a water pit at an HR&CE department construction site in Triplicane on Saturday.
Ice House police said the deceased, V Vanamali of Triplicane, and his cousin sister had scaled their house compound wall and entered the construction site while playing.
Vanamali studied Class 2 at a private school in Mylapore. On Saturday, he came to his grandfather’s house in Triplicane which was located adjacent to the premises, where the HR&CE department was constructing a building.
His grandfather had recently asked the labourers at the site to carry out some patchwork on the house compound wall. While the rest of the construction site had scaffolding nets, there were none on the side of the house as the labourers had planned to undertake work on the shared compound wall. A ladder was also placed there.
“Vanamali and his 13-year-old cousin climbed over the compound wall and entered the work site. While playing there, the boy accidentally slipped and fell into an eight-foot-deep pit that was dug up to install an elevator shaft. The pit was full of water when the incident occurred,” a senior police officer said.
The girl alerted her family and Vanamali was pulled out of the pit. He was rushed to a government hospital where he was declared dead. Upon information, the Ice House police personnel recovered the boy’s body and sent it to a government hospital for postmortem. A case has been registered and further investigation is underway.