Tirunelveli stone quarry accident: Missing lorry driver not found

Chennai, May 22 (SocialNews.XYZ) Even after two rounds of controlled explosions to remove boulders and stones for finding the missing lorry driver P. Rajendran, there was no luck.

The stone quarry accident at Adaimithippankulam on May 14 led to the death of three workers while two crane operators were rescued. Rajendran, who is suspected to be trapped under several tonnes of boulders, is yet to be located even after two rounds of controlled blasts to clear the stones.

After controlled blasts, stones were removed but the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel were not able to locate Rajendran.

Rescuers said that a foul smell was emanating from a rock and the NDRF team expected that Rajendran might be crushed inside the boulders there. However, when stones and boulders were removed, he could not be found.

Police and NDRF personnel told IANS that another controlled blast will be conducted at the adjacent rocks as the foul smell was still emanating from the area. The NDRF team will monitor the controlled blast.

The owner of the stone quarry, 'Chamber' Selvaraj (84), and his son, Kumar (52) were arrested from a lodge near Mangaluru, Karnataka on Saturday.

Police sources told IANS that 'Chamber' Selvaraj is a major player in the brick kiln business in Tirunelveli district and owns brick kilns at Ponnakudi in Palayamkottai and Parappadi near Nangureni.

Nanguneri ASP, Rajat Chaturvedi who is the chief investigating officer in this case, said that many documents pertaining to excessive mining of stones in the quarry at Adaimithippankulam have been gathered. He said that the details of the transaction of a whopping sum of money for selling stones, blue metal, and M-sand have been recovered during the searches.

According to the investigating officer, the documents revealed that illegal quarrying was blatantly taking place in the crusher.

Source: IANS