The Hindu : Karnataka News : Five injured as excavator hurtles towards crowd

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jun 18, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka

Five injured as excavator hurtles towards crowd

Special Correspondent

Accident during Siddaramaiah's inauguration of roadworks

MYSORE: A major tragedy was averted during the launch of the Mysore-Bantwal highway work near Yelwal on the outskirts of Mysore on Friday as the excavator that was placed under a high-tension wire, hurtled towards a large crowd leaving five persons injured.

The accident occurred when the Deputy Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah, who performed the `guddali puja' for the highway work, stepped into the control cabin of the excavator and pulled a lever at the behest of the operator to signify the commencement of earthwork.

The heavy equipment instantly roared into action and the giant excavator swung sidewards even as the wheels lunged into a large crowd that had gathered around the equipment to get a closer view of the Deputy Chief Minister.

Scores of persons were thrown aside instantly while the rest ran helter-skelter to avoid coming in the way of the excavator that was hurtling ahead even as the operator froze in shock before regaining his composure to immobilise the equipment.

Minister of State for Labour, Tanvir Sait, was the first to sense the seriousness of the situation and jumped out of the excavator while a dazed Mr. Siddaramaiah and others followed him and were taken aside by the security personnel.

Five persons were injured. Ravi, an eighth standard student of the local government high school, was caught in the melee and four toes of his right foot were mutilated as they came under the metallic teeth of the excavator. Maidanahalli Shivanna, a gram panchayat member fractured his ankle while Shashikumar , a reporter of a Kannada daily, sustained a collar bone fracture. Jayant, a cameraman for Doordarshan sprained his ankle when the excavator knocked him down. Bhyra and Prasanna, escaped with bruises. And all of them were rushed to a private hospital for treatment.

The earthmover was stationed under a high-tension wire and the equipment was immobilised before it could come in contact with the live wire. A visibly dazed Mr. Siddaramaiah, who addressed the gathering, took note of it and said: "Had the machine come in contact with the live wire none of us would have been alive by now."

He said he entered the control cabin of the excavator and did not manipulate the buttons but the operator asked him to pull the lever. "It is sheer providence that no major calamity has taken place. While it is our fault that we entered the control cabin, our engineers should have taken care not to have stationed the equipment near a high-tension wire," he said.

Doctors treating the injured said except for Ravi who would need a surgery and risked losing a few of his toes, the others were all right.

The Chief Minister, N. Dharam Singh, and the Minister for Water Resources, Mallikarjun Kharge, expressed their shock and relief about the incident.

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