4 Andhra engineering students drown in Krishna river; bodies recovered

Amaravati: Bodies of four engineering students, drowned in the Krishna river near Amaravati while on a pleasure trip, were retrieved on Sunday after a search operation involving the Navy, National Disaster Response Force and State Disaster Response Force personnel, the Andhra Pradesh state emergency operations centre said.

The four second-year students of a private college at Kanchikacharla in Krishna district were washed away in the river at Pavitra Sangamam the confluence of Godavari and Krishna rivers on Saturday evening.

An intense search was launched soon after the incident by the personnel of the NDRF and SDRF besides those from the Fire Services and expert swimmers.

Deep divers of the Navy from the Eastern Naval Command joined the search operations on Sunday morning and the bodies were retrieved, a release from the emergency operations centre said.

The deceased have been identified as Krishna Chaitanya Reddy, Srinadh N, Raj Kumar Pilla and Praveen K.

According to police, in all, five engineering students had come to Pavitra Sangamam on a pleasure trip when the mishap occurred.

One of them slipped into the river, following which three others tried to rescue him, but they too got washed away in the strong river current.

Krishna district Collector (in-charge) Vijaya Krishnan on Saturday said the students apparently did not gauge the force with which the water was flowing in the river.

Everything happened in two minutes. By the time the patrol teams in the area arrived, everything happened," she said.

Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has expressed grief over the accident.

Pradesh Congress Committee president N Raghuveera Reddy also expressed grief and asked the government to take required steps to prevent recurrence of such tragedies.