One person identified as Ashwath Narayana, 41, an advertisement manager in a media firm, died when he got trapped in the car that plunged into a 40-feet deep construction pit on December 29 evening. The Vidapanakal Police and Guntakal Fire Department personnel with the help of three cranes fished out the car on December 30 morning that plunged into the 40-feet construction pit made for a bridge on Guntakal - Ballari National Highway at Donekal village in Vidapanakal Mandal of the district.
Vidapanakal Sub-Inspector of Police G. Gopaludu and Guntakal Station Fire Officer P. Manoharan toiled the entire night with two locally summoned cranes, but they could not bring it out, so the police personnel brought a large crane from Ballari, which could fish out the car at 4:30 am. The eye-witnesses said that while the car driver coming from Hyderabad to Ballari was supposed to take a left turn at the road closure, suddenly saw another vehicle coming from the opposite direction and took an unexpected right turn leading to the car plunging into the SRK Construction-dug pit, the police said.
There are no signages of impending danger at the turning and the barrier between the road margin and the pit is only a ribbon tied to a series of 10 mm iron rods.
Before going down to the bottom of the pit full of mud, the driver Ashwath Narayana waved his hands and asked for help, but even before someone could reach him, the vehicle went down. “We contacted the family members and they said he was coming alone from Hyderabad and there was no one else in the car,” said Mr. Gopaludu.
