Pregnant wife, husband die after being electrocuted

TURA: A husband and his pregnant wife returning from a fishing trip at a nearby river in Purakhasia were electrocuted when they stepped on a naked high tension wire that was lying on the road on Friday night.
The young couple who were in their early twenties, Cherik N Sangma and Eldora Marak, belonging to Darong Adu village of Purakhasia had gone down to the Darong river for fishing on that ill-fated evening.
They were returning from their fishing trip sometime between 10-10:30 pm and passing through a place called Grazing Field, less than half a km from their village, when they accidently stepped on a live wire lying on the ground leading to their electrocution and death.
The place where the incident occurred is on the road to Salmanpara and locals complain that maintenance of the lines and posts are seldom done by the power department. They added that repeated complaints to the local power department office fail to yield any results.
However, a senior power department official monitoring the situation told The Shillong Times that a visit to the spot revealed that one of the probable reasons for the wire being snapped was due to the ongoing road widening in which the road construction company had raised the level of the road at the spot reducing  the clearance for big vehicles.
“Our inspection indicates that the height of the post had been reduced and the wire had snapped possibly after being hit by a passing vehicle causing the live wire to remain on the road,” said the power department official.
He added that usually the company has to inform the power department whenever the level is raised so that the fresh alignment of the electrical posts can be undertaken.
He also acknowledged that the entire transmission line through the Dalu-Purakhasia-Salmanapara route was in need of new alignment and replacement of posts for which the company had prepared a project and was awaiting the government nod.