New Delhi: Five members of a family drowned in a water-filled quarry in Dombivali in Maharashtra’s Thane district on Saturday evening, a fire brigade official told news agency PTI. The incident took place around 4 pm on Saturday evening in Sandip village, the official added. The deceased were identified as three children and two women.
"A woman and her daughter-in-law were washing clothes near the quarry when one of the woman's three grandchildren, who were sitting close by, slipped into the water. The other four tried to rescue the child but they all drowned," the official was quoted as saying by PTI.
After the primary investigation, it was revealed that the deceased were 55-year-old Mira Gaikwad, her 30-year-old daughter-in-law Apeksha, and grandchildren 15-year-old Mayuresh, 13-year-old Moksha, and 15-year-old Nilesh.
The official also said that the bodies of the deceased were fished out and a case of accidental deaths has been registered at the Dombivali police station.
According to a report by the Times of India, the police said that the victims were busy washing clothes when one of the grandsons, who was sitting on the bank of the quarry slipped and fell into the water. In order to save him, both the women and the other children went into the water, but they also drowned. The locals informed the local Manpada police station after witnessing the incident who then called the fire brigade team to search for the victims.
The Sandip village falls in Kalyan city which is facing an acute water shortage for months. Last month, Bombay HC slammed the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC) after their failure to resolve the water-shortage issue in the Nandivali area in Kalyan.