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Gomti accident: 24 hrs into rescue op, Nepalese woman among two still missing
A private car -- with four people onboard -- skidded off the road and fell into the Gomti river in Lucknow late on Tuesday evening.
LUCKNOW Despite their best efforts, rescue teams were not able to trace the 32-year-old woman and the man (whose age couldn’t be ascertained), who went missing after their car fell into the Gomti river late on Tuesday evening. The missing duo has been identified as Meera Kumari, a Nepalese, and Rahul Yadav. The duo was accompanied by two other men, who were rescued soon after the car accident.
Sharing further details, Piyush Mordia, Lucknow’s joint commissioner of police, said, “Joint teams of police, the national disaster response force (NDRF), and the state disaster response force (SDRF) carried out the search operation throughout the day but couldn’t find the missing duo on Wednesday. The search operation will continue.”
For the unversed, a private car -- with four people onboard -- skidded off the road and fell into the Gomti river in Lucknow late on Tuesday evening. The accident took place at the river-front stretch near Samta Mulak crossing under Mahanagar police station limits when the group of four had come out for a short night drive.
According to locals, this is not the first time that an accident has taken place on the route. “An SUV ferrying eight people had slipped into the river from the same stretch in June 2021 as well. The accident killed a passenger -- Nikhil Gupta. Despite this, authorities didn’t take any action to prevent more such accidents,” said an area resident requesting anonymity.
While Lucknow Municipal Commissioner Indrajeet Singh visited the spot on Wednesday and ordered officials to block the route to prevent any untoward incident, several commuters were still seen using the stretch as a “shortcut” to the Paper Mill Colony regardless of the risk involved. In fact, the garbage trucks of the Lucknow Municipal Corporation, food delivery agents, and private vehicles frequently passed through the stretch while the rescue teams carried out search operations to trace the missing duo.
‘Could hear their cries after the speeding car fell into the river’
LUCKNOW Bystanders who witnessed the Tuesday’s horrific accident say that the car was speeding and the driver probably couldn’t control the vehicle which fell into the Gomti. Eyewitnesses added that they couldn’t prevent the accident due to the speed of the car, however, soon after the vehicle fell into the river, they ran towards the bank and also notified the police.
“We heard cries of the four passengers coming from the car which had fallen into the water. They were trapped inside the vehicle,” said an eye-witness to the accident. Other eyewitnesses, who regularly come to the place for night walks, said that three local youths -- Samir Khan, Rajesh, and Rupesh -- were able to rescue two of the car passengers -- 26-year-old Bhadohi-resident Abhishek Dubey and 24-year-old Sitapur-resident Dushyant Shukla.
Some of them bystanders even caught a glimpse of the two missing persons -- Meena Kumari and Rahul Yadav -- but the duo got swept away in waves within seconds probably because they couldn’t swim.
