RAJAHMUNDRY: Five BTech students of SRM University drowned in river Godavari on the Andhra Pradesh-Telangana border on Friday.The tragedy occurred when seven second-year engineering students from the private university in Amaravati fell into the river while taking photographs, near Veleru village under Kukkunuru mandal in Eluru district of Andhra Pradesh. While two of them managed to swim back, five were swept away.According to the police, the students visited the place due to Ugadi holidays and were taking photographs near the river, when they lost balance and fell into the water. There was a sand ramp nearby, and the river was very deep there. The students, unable to gauge the depth, may have tried to reach the sand ramp thinking it was shallow and drowned, police said.Two of the seven students, who knew swimming, swam back safely. Hearing their cries for help, some locals who were fishing nearby rushed in to save the drowning students, but it was too late.Police rushed to the spot and pressed expert swimmers to search for the missing students.CM pushes for intensive search after river mishapSDRF teams also joined the search operation. While two bodies were fished out, three students remain missing. Polavaram DSP M Venkateswara Rao said the seven students from SRM University ventured into the Godavari on the AP-Telangana border at about 11.30 am on Friday. They were picnicking and taking photographs and later ventured into the river.While the bodies of Podicheti Abhiram and Cheguntla Srikar Gupta were retrieved, search is on to trace Gone Teja (native of Vuyyur town) , Pasam Satish Kumar (from Madanapalle), and Daggubati Navadeep (also from Vuyyur). Chunduti Deepak (from Kalidindi) and Gadla Harsha (from Vizianagaram), who swam back to safety, have been hospitalised as they are in trauma. The bodies were shifted to Bhachrachalam govt hospital for postmortem.
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Expressing deep shock over the incident, chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu directed the authorities concerned to continue with the search operation till all bodies were retrieved. He said the state govt will stand by the families of the deceased students and extend all possible support to them.
