COIMBATORE: In the wake of two drowning incidents in the Bhavani river in Coimbatore on Saturday that claimed three lives, the Coimbatore District (Rural) police have decided to launch a specialized lifeguard team to prevent fatalities in future.
Bhavani river falls under three police station limits Karamadai, Mettupalayam and Sirumugai, covering around 20 villages in the southern part of the district. As many as 41 deaths due to drowning were reported from the river in the past two years and all the mishaps have occurred in Mettupalayam and Sirumugai police limits.
Following the accidents on Saturday, police identified Nellithurai, Uppupallam and Maampatti in Mettupalayam police limit and Vatchinamplayam, Alankombu in Sirumugai police limit as hotspots. Superintendent of Police V Badrinarayanan on Sunday held a meeting with senior officers where measures such as an early warning system and alerting people across the river bank immediately after the water release from Pillur dam were discussed.
Following the meeting, police decided to deploy a lifeguard team of 10 personnel trained by State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) to monitor the river bank from Pillur dam to the backwater area of Bhavanisagar dam (Sirumugai). They would liaise with police, fire and rescue personnel and the public works department which maintains dams, said sources.
“Through this, the public can be quickly informed about the time of the release of water from the dam. If anyone gets stuck in the flood, the team can rescue them along with the stakeholder’s departments. It has also been decided to introduce a separate helpline number for the public so that they can report accidents on time,” said a senior official.
DSP (Mettupalayam sub-division) Balaji said, “Three early warning alarm systems have been installed along the river bank in Mettupalayam to alert the public about the water release from the Pillur dam. But outsiders are not aware of the alarm. Hence we planned to place warning boards detailing the purpose of the early warning system at the place.”
Further, the police are collecting data on drowning deaths in Bhavani river for the last three years and the details of hotspots where such accidents frequently happen. On Saturday, five people were swept away in the Bhavani river in two separate at Mettupalayam and Sirumugai allegedly after water was released from the Pillur dam. The dead bodies of the three women were retrieved from the Sirumugai locality. But the two ITI students who went missing in the flood from Uppupallam near Mettupalayam have not yet been traced. The search operation to locate them continued on Sunday, sources said.