In a daring early morning operation, fire and rescue service personnel rescued 15 residents of Ramasamy Nagar, Kothagiri Road, Mettupalayam from a rooftop on Friday. However, a six-year-old girl was washed away in flash floods triggered by heavy rains that lashed the region on Thursday night.
Sources said that on Thursday night, several areas in and around Mettupalayam experienced heavy rains. This led to waterlogging and inundation of many residential pockets. The sudden showers also triggered flash floods in the canal submerging areas on both the banks. As the situation was turning grim, residents of houses in Annai Indira Nagar started moving to safer places
Around 15 persons who took refuge on a rooftop got stranded there and other residents called up the Mettupalayam Fire and Rescue Service Personnel to rescued them. Immediately a team rushed to the spot and firefighters fastened life vests onto the 15 persons. Later all of them were rescued.
Speaking to Express, the Mettupalayam station officer, Palanichamy, said that it took a little more than 15 minutes to complete the operation. Fire service personnel then made a door-to-door check on each of the 30 houses to ensure that no one was left behind. The entire operation, which started around 1 am on Friday, was completed in 30 minutes.
Among the 15 rescued persons, three were children aged between six and nine, and five women.
Despite the fire service personnel’s swift and timely operation, Hasini, a six-year-old girl and daughter of Hariharan, was washed away in the floods before the rescue party reached her. The girl’s body was later retrieved on Friday morning near the Bhavani check dam.