Chennai: The ill-fated Kurangani fire tragedy on claimed two more lives Friday, thus, pushing up the death toll to 16. According to Madurai government hospital sources, Devi of Salem who had sustained more than 80 percent burn injuries died on Friday morning. Another victim, Sathyakala of Tiruppur who was being treated at a private hospital in Madurai, also died due to severe burn injuries. The officials also said that three more patients were in critical state and are being continuously attended by the government doctors.
Meanwhile, top officials of the state forest department, who have earned the wrath for not filling up the vacant posts in the department, went into a huddle to discuss about the fire tragedy and took stock of what went wrong by compiling the inputs provided by the local foresters.
Forest minister Dindigul C. Sreenivasan and the forest secretary Nasimuddin were briefed about the incident in detail. The action taken to prevent such accidents in the future was explained to them.
The foresters are compiling a report to be handed over to the special officer and revenue secretary Athulya Misra, who is investigating into the tragedy.
The department is taking all efforts to regularise the trekking and multiple meetings are being conducted to come out with solutions for forest fires, an official said.
A lot of estates and resorts have come up in the core jungle areas and these estates are to be scanned as they promote illegal treks and unsafe jungle trips, the official said.
The post of local ranger is vacant but the local forester is under suspension. Further action against other senior officials will be taken based on the report compiled by revenue secretary, the official added.
It may be noted that so far 16 lives, including those of six people from Chennai who were on the ill-fated trek were killed. Six have been discharged so far.
