MALAPPURAM: A 39-year-old man and his nephew drowned in the Chaliyar River at Ponnempadam in Vazhayur panchayat on Sunday. The deceased are Jawhar, 39, of Kannanchery Thazham house, Karad, and his nephew, Nebuhan, 15.
Jawhar and Nebuhan, along with other family members, had gone to the river to collect an edible organism living in river water, known in the local parlance as ‘karanth’. However, during their work, they lost balance in the strong undercurrents of the water and began to sink.
Local people in the area managed to rescue four of the five people. “After reaching the safety of the land, Jawhar jumped back into the river to rescue Nebuhan. Unfortunately, he was neither able to locate Nebuhan nor return to the land. Subsequently, the members of the fire and rescue services and the emergency rescue force recovered the lifeless bodies of Jawhar and Nebuhan from the river,” said a resident of Ponnempadam. The rescue officials retrieved Nebuhan’s body first and then Jawhar’s body around 9.40 pm.