MYSURU: A car plunged into the Visvesvaraya canal, killing five passengers, near Banaghatta in Pandavapura taluk on Tuesday.
The deceased are K T Krishnappa (64) from Tiptur taluk in Tumakuru district, Chandrappa (61), Dhananjaya (55), Jayanna and Babu. This is the second incident as four people had met a watery grave after their car fell into the canal recently.
According to villagers, the car was travelling from Mysuru to Nagamangala taluk when it plunged into the canal. The incident happened when the driver of the speeding car tried to avoid hitting a bike near the under-construction bridge at 4.45 PM. As the canal was full due to water being released from the KRS dam on Monday, the five passengers could not escape and drowned.
Tender coconut sellers noticed the incident jumped and into the canal to rescue the people for more than half an hour but failed. They informed the fire service and police who launched an operation to rescue the people.
The police with expert swimmers managed to trace the vehicle by late evening. The car was fished out of the canal using a crane at 8.15 PM.