VILLUPURAM: Two brothers died of electrocution after they came in contact with a snapped live wire near Gingee in Villupuram on Friday morning. The deceased have been identified as K Ramachandran (36) and K Chinnarasu (30), sugarcane-cutting labourers from Konganallur in Villupuram.
According to police, the incident took place when Ramachandran was on his way to the fields owned by Nagaraj, a farmer, in Perumpugai village, where a group of 19 workers from Konganallur, including two women, had been undertaking sugarcane harvesting works for the past one week.
On Friday morning, Ramachandran was going for work through an adjacent field when he accidentally came in contact with the live wire, which got snapped following the heavy rains that lashed Gingee and surrounding areas on Thursday night. He sustained severe electric shock and collapsed on the spot, police said.
Seeing his elder brother in distress, Chinnarasu, who was in the nearby field, rushed to rescue him, but he too came in contact with the live wire and got electrocuted, police added.
Subsequently, fellow labourers took the brothers to the Gingee government hospital, where doctors declared them brought dead. Upon information, Gingee police sent the bodies for postmortem examination to Mundiyambakkam government medical college hospital. Ramachandran is survived by his wife and three daughters, while Chinnarasu leaves behind his wife and two daughters.
Meanwhile, officials from the electricity board, the local tahsildar, and revenue authorities inspected the site and initiated an inquiry. Local residents have demanded the authorities to take immediate steps to ensure the safety of power lines in agricultural fields to prevent such tragedies.