After a breathtaking struggle of nine hours, 10 lives were rescued from Damodar river on last midnight (12.30 am) who were trapped in the mid of the river after a sudden release of water from the reservoir of Tenughat Dam at Chandrapura (Bokaro district) on Friday afternoon.
The rescued boys spelled their horror experiences which they felt during the 9 hours when they were trapped in the river; promised their families, “never to go in the river.”
“As water level and its flow was rising with every spent of seconds, we all get shocked for a moment; imagined death is confirm,” said Guddu one among the rescued.
“We were eleven and only Deepak among us knows swimming, so he escaped as soon as he saw heavy water flow coming towards us and we ten got trapped,” said Ashok.
“In a bid to save our life we tried hard and climb-up on the top of a big stone which was in the middle of river”, he added. From the fear of death, we started praying to God. Suddenly we got courage after seeing few people were waving hands and assuring for help to us, he said.
Actually our friend Deepak who was escaped, rushed to the DVC’s intake well staff and others, and asked to save us, Ashok said.
later the staff informed to DVC officials, SDO Bermo, DC and SP Bokaro. Taking spontaneous action, Uma Shankar Singh DC Bokaro ordered to close the dam gate immediately but rescued operations was hindered due to high current in flooding water. High mask light was arranged for the rescue work. After nine hours, when water current went down, two rescues teams, one from the Khetko side and another from Pachhora side moved and rushed to save them. With the help of air filled tubes, all were rescued; identified as Chhotalal Bhuinya, Santos, Uttam, Pankaj, Harendra, Arun, Ashok, Guddu, Rajesh and Permanand, all aged between 18-21 years are resident of Chanduadih under Dugda panchayat of Chandrapura.
“After getting a defeat in a cricket match we all (eleven) are on the way to home, “said Harendra. As you know district is reeling under acute water and power supply so we decided to take a bath in Damoder, he said.
“At 12.30, we landed into the river to take a bath, there was only knee dipped water. Suddenly at around 1.30, when were trying to catch fishes, we saw huge water coming towards us. We all got stunned, did not get time to think and were all trapped-in,” added Harendra. Meanwhile, villagers alleged that the have not got any alert from the Tenughat Dam’s officials, according to the directives, alert is essential in the adjoining areas of the rivers and dams, said the villagers.