ATHANI: Two youths, drowned in a tank while trying to shift an electrical water pump to safety, at Shivanur village in the district in the early hours of Saturday.
The deceased were identified as Hanumanth Kiranagi (30) and Hanumanth Patil (25), native of Shivanur village.
After rain lashed a few villages in Belgaum taluk, includung Shivanur for nearly three hours on Friday late night, the 45-foot deep open well belonging to Kiranagi was brim with water. The duo went inside to takeout the pumpset fixed inside the tank. They were buried in the silt as the muddy top edge of tank caved in. Fire fighters and emergency service staff and police, who came to the spot in the morning, pumped out water till evening to fish out the bodies, but in vain. They said there was around 20-foot silt in the irrigation tank and suspected that the bodies were stuck in the silt.