Death toll in forest fire rises to 18 in TN, probe begins
TNN Bureau. Updated: 3/22/2018 1:49:52 PM
National
Theni, Mar 22 : The death toll in the major forest fire incident in Theni district of Tamil Nadu rose to 18 with the death of a 32-year-old woman trekker at a private hospital in Coimbatore on Thursday.
Official sources said E.Jeyashree from Chennai, who had sustained 70 percent burn injuries in the wildfire, was airlifted to the Ganga Hospital in Coimbatore by a chopper from Madurai on March 12 for further treatment. She was put on a life-support system and had been battling for her life for the past 11 days. Despite intense treatment, Jeyashree succumbed to the burn injuries this noon, the sources added.
The condition of three more trekkers undergoing treatment in private and government hospital in Madurai remained to be critical.
Meanwhile, the Principal Secretary (Revenue and Disaster Management) to the Government of Tamil Nadu, Atulya Misra, appointed by the state government to conduct an inquiry on the forest fire, began his investigation this morning.
Accompanied by Theni district collector Pallavi Baldev and Senior forest and police officials, Mr.Misra visited the Kottakudi reserve forests on the Western Ghats. He will meet the people, who have information about the forest fire at the conference hall in Bodi Municipality on Friday morning as part of the investigation.
The investigating officer would look into the circumstances that led to the forest fire incident that claimed 18 lives so far, the procedures laid down by the forest department for regulation of trekking activities in reserve forests, including the procedure for granting permission, and the role and lapses if any on the part of the trekking organisers and forest officials. He would submit he report to the state government in two months.
Ten people were killed and 17 others sustained burn injuries, when a 36-member trekking expedition team caught in a massive forest fire atop the Kolukkumalai Hills in Kurangani forest area in the Western Ghats on March 11 that had sent shockwaves across the nation.