Man trapped in Thiruvananthapuram canal: body found after 46 hrs

Thiruvananthapuram: The body of the missing sanitation worker in Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram, Joy, who entered a sewage canal here to clean waste and got swept away in a sudden water current, has been found. This was 46 hours after his being swept away, and a large-scale rescue was initiated involving fire and rescue, the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and the Indian Navy.

The body was found in the canal behind the Thakaraparam Chitra Home in Pazhavangadi, and the Thiruvananthapuram district collector confirmed that it belonged to Joy.

The search for his body was resumed at 6:30 am on Monday, the third day of him going missing. A scuba team and a navy team had reached the search.

In the last two days, the rescue teams faced extreme challenges at the Thiruvananthapuram Central railway station, where the canal becomes a tunnel and runs beneath the station. The deceased was believed to be trapped inside the tunnel where humongous amounts of waste accumulated, congesting the canal. The rescue mission deployed two robots with cameras attached to the tunnel since it became practically life-threatening for humans to enter inside because of darkness and waste congestion.

It was on Saturday, around 11 am when victim Joy got swept away by a water current. He is a temporary sanitation worker, and he was caught off guard while working on the Thampanoor section of the Amayizhanchan canal, which is the main drainage of the city. Heavy rain caused the sudden current, which caught Joy and three other workers off-guard. The other three were fortunate enough to escape.

The incident of the worker facing fate triggered a widespread debate among the public, particularly on social media. The state administration blamed the railway, which employed Joy for the work, for not conducting periodic cleaning drives of the canal.