KOCHI: A French tourist who is in Kerala for a few months for treatment with his mother suffered injuries after falling into an open drain near the Customs Jetty in Fort Kochi on Thursday. Thirty-nine-year-old Landon from France was on his way to the boat jetty when the accident occurred.
“The mother-son duo was walking towards the boat jetty in the morning when the mishap took place. He slipped and fell into the drain. We pulled him out and he was taken to hospital immediately,” said Fazarudheen, a local resident who witnessed the accident. The foreigner was later shifted to the General Hospital in Ernakulam after which he underwent emergency surgery in a private hospital.
Fazarudheen said that the drain has been lying open for the past few months, posing a threat to the safety of boat passengers and residents in the area. “The drainage repair work, a project under the Cochin Smart Mission Limited (CSML), has been handed over to some other agency and it is progressing slowly. The authorities need to take action immediately,” he said.
TNIE tried reaching the councillor. However, he was not available. Following the incident, the Paschimakochi Passengers Association, an association representing boat passengers in the area, wrote to the district administration, requesting their intervention in the issue.
“The work at the jetty where hundreds of passengers pass through every day is moving slowly. We request you to kindly intervene urgently in the matter of dredging the Mattancherry boat jetty,” said M M Abbas, the president of the association, in the letter.