Hyderabad: Three women and a nine-year-old girl were swept away when a putti, a small saucer-shaped boat called coracle, capsized in the raging Krishna river Narayanpet district of Telangana on Monday afternoon.
They were among 13 people in the boat, trying to get back to their village of Kuruvapuram in Karnataka from Panchadevapahad village in Makhtal mandal in Telangana. Nine of them were rescued by local fishermen.
Puttis are basket-like boats steered by oarsmen for the short-haul along the banks of the Krishna in Telangana and Karnataka.
The villagers of Kuruvapuram had come to Panchadevapahad village in Makhtal mandal to buy essential commodities and were returning to their village when tragedy struck.
Rivers have been in spate in Telangana due to incessant rains in the past four days. The Godavari is flowing above warning level three at Bhadrachalam, reaching a level of 60.7 ft at 1 pm Monday.
Several other deaths have been reported from across the state. A 55-year-old man was killed as a portion of his house collapsed in West Fort in Khila Warangal mandal in the early hours of Monday.One person was washed away when an SUV with four persons was swept away while they were attempting to cross an overflowing causeway between Sikindlapur and Darpally villages in Nanganur Mandal of Siddipet district around midnight Sunday.
In the SUV incident, three of the occupants jumped out and grabbed a tree in the middle of the stream while the fourth person was washed away. The three men made a phone call to the local police station and him and requested help.
A search operation is on to trace the missing person.
With the Godavari in flood at Bhadrachalam, project authorities are releasing 40259 cusecs of water downstream. Authorities at the Jurala Project have opened 39 spillway gates to ease the pressure from 2.96 lakh cusecs of inflow into the project. The authorities are letting out 2.75 lakh cusecs downstream.
The weather forecast on Monday was for heavy rain at isolated places over Telangana.
