Maharashtra: 11-year-old dies getting water from near-dry well

Mangalore Today News Network

Maharashtra, Apr 22, 2016: In Maharashtra’s drought-hit Beed, 11-year-old Sachin Kengar went this morning to get water from the well near his village.

In the parched district, it is one of the many deep wells in which water has mostly dried up and pooled at the bottom.

 

Sachin tried to draw water but in a flash, villagers could only see his cycle and the pots he had brought to fill.

He reportedly slipped and fell. Villagers pulled him out and tried to revive him but couldn’t.

“We went to the spot and saw the boy’s cycle and vessels were still there. It appears he died of drowning after he fell into the well,” police constable Dinakar Puri said.

Sachin’s village is one of the many facing acute water shortage. Tankers supply water and often release it in wells.

This is the second child death this week in Beed, one of the seven districts in Marathwada devastated by drought for three years in a row.

On Sunday, 12-year-old Yogita Desai died of a heart attack and dehydration after making five trips to a water pump near her home.

She had been unwell for days with dysentery but was forced to go out in 42 degrees heat to get water from an almost dry pump.

The water shortage in the Marathwada region has meant that every member of the family, even children, are forced to make multiple trips to the nearest water source in the blazing heat.

Across India, a heat wave has killed over 110 people so far. 45 people have died in Odisha; another 35 in Telangana in the last three weeks.