CHENNAI: An elderly woman and her three granddaughters died of suspected suffocation due to smoke triggered by an electrical short circuit while sleeping in their house near Manali in Chennai on Saturday.
Santhanalakshmi (65), Sandhya (10), Priya Lakshmi (8), and Pavithra (8) were asleep in the house on Second Cross Street, Third Main Road, Mathur-MMDA, when the incident happened. Sandhya was a Class 5 student at a corporation school. Her sister Priya Lakshmi and cousin Pavithra were Class 3 students at the same school in the locality.
A fire service officer said power sockets and a few switchboards were found completely gutted in the house. “We suspect an electrical malfunction in a tower fan in the house may have led to the short circuit. The smoke from the fan engulfed the room which had no proper ventilation,” a senior police officer said. A mosquito liquid repellent canister was found completely burnt with no liquid inside, he said.
Police said Santhalakshmi’s son Udayar, 40, a food delivery agent, met with an accident two weeks ago and suffered severe injuries. He was admitted to a hospital and his wife Selvi, 32, stayed with him to assist him. As the children were alone in the house, Udayar had invited his mother Santhanalakshmi, who was living in Kadayanallur in Tenkasi district, to stay with them in their house in Mathur for a few days. Selvi’s brother Boothanathan and his wife Velammal stayed in another house in the neighbourhood. Boothanathan’s daughter Pavithra and Selvi’s two daughters stayed with Santhanalakshmi on the fateful night.
As Pavithra didn’t return home on Saturday morning and since there was no response when they knocked at the door, her parents peeped through the window and saw the children lying unconscious. As smoke was billowing out of the house, they broke open the door. On information, a team from the Manali fire station rushed to the spot. Fire officer Soundarapandian said, “All four residents had died before we reached. They may have died in their sleep.” The bodies were sent for postmortem.
A Jamuna, who lives on the first floor of the house where the accident happened, said the three girls could always be found playing on the street, laughing and chatting. Another neighbour, M Rajarajan, who fondly called the girls ‘vaandu’, said all the three were to give a dance performance at a residents’ welfare association event scheduled later in the month and had been rehearsing for that.