Chennai: Two college students were charred to death in a transformer blast near Sriperumbudur on Thursday morning. The victims, identified as N Delhi Ganesh and A Dakshinamurthy, both 17, were attempting to harvest ice apple (nungu) from a tree when the incident occurred.
Details of the Incident
According to police reports, the boys had been playing cricket before deciding to pluck the fruits at around 10 am. They climbed a palmyra tree using a harvesting pole, but a cluster of fruits fell onto high-tension transformer wires nearby and became stuck. The students then borrowed a wooden pole fitted with an iron sickle at the tip from a local resident to retrieve the fruits. As they used the pole, the transformer suddenly exploded, triggering a fire that engulfed both of them. The impact threw them off the tree, and they sustained severe burn injuries.
Response and Aftermath
Villagers alerted fire and rescue services, who rushed to the spot. The injured were taken to Sriperumbudur government hospital, where doctors declared them brought dead. Police stated that the students had overlooked the iron tip attached to the pole, which led to electrocution. Locals mentioned that the boys, residents of Sirumangadu village and first-year students at a private college, usually consumed the fruit offered by villagers. However, on Thursday, they tried to pluck it themselves.
Police have sent the bodies for postmortem to the same hospital and registered a case of accidental deaths. Further investigation is underway.
