Two lives lost in past three months in Kozhikode city
Endangering pedestrians’ safety, a number of deep drainages are remaining open along suburban and city roads like deathtraps where the city corporation is yet to make quick intervention. Within the past three months alone, two persons fell into such uncovered drains and lost their lives. The latest incident took place at Palazhi on Saturday where a middle-aged autorickshaw driver was found dead inside an open drain.
Union leaders representing autorickshaw drivers from the area said the man reportedly fell into the open drain while he was wading through a waterlogged road. During the rainy season, many persons unfamiliar with the dangerous condition of drains had met with such freak accidents causing serious leg injuries, they said.
Though many of the dangerous open drains in the urban area had been earlier closed by the corporation authorities following mass complaints, they failed to complete the emergency work in many of the unnoticed suburban areas. Such uncovered locations were later found emerging as problem spots during heavy rain.
“There are many isolated stretches of drainages remaining uncovered along the city roads near Eranhipalam, Puthiyara, Medical College, Nadakkavu, Elathur and West Hill areas. The most dangerous ones are those located in between the renovated stretches which never catch the attention of pedestrians,” says an ex-serviceman from West Hill.
The delay in replacing the partly collapsed slabs with stronger ones were also found creating huge safety hurdles for pedestrians along the national and State highways in the city. According to officials, the contractors were allegedly trying to postpone or delay the execution of low-cost maintenance works. Even the renovated drains were found developing dangerous cracks obstructing the safe movement of pedestrians.
“It’s natural for pedestrians to walk over covered drains along highways to skip waterlogged roads and avoid the rush of vehicles. Many a time, they fall into traps because of the poor number of street lights in such vulnerable areas,” says P.V. Vineesh, a delivery boy from Pavangad. He suggested that voluntary organisations in the city could think of conducting a comprehensive field survey in the city to identify such dangerous locations and bring them to the attention of the corporation authorities for follow-up action.
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