Bodies of three Andhra students recovered from Krishna river

Of the four Andhra Pradesh students who had drowned in the Krishna river near Vijayawada on Saturday, bodies of three have been recovered, while the search for the fourth one is on. The students were on a picnic at at Pavitra Sangamam, the confluence points of Krishna and Godavari rivers at Ibrahimpatnam.

Bodies of three out of four students from Andhra Pradesh who had drowned in the Krishna river near Vijayawada on Saturday, were fished out on Sunday, police said.

The rescue workers found the bodies of Praveen, 18, Chaitanya, 18, and Srinath, 19, and the deceased were then moved to a government hospital in Vijayawada for autopsy. The rescue workers are still searching for Rajkumar, 19, the police said.

The incident occurred at Pavitra Sangamam, the confluence points of the Krishna and Godavari rivers at Ibrahimpatnam.

Five students in the second year of a private engineering college had gone there for a picnic. When one of them was drowning while taking a bath, three others tried to save him but all of them were washed away in strong currents. The fifth student alerted the police.

National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and divers joined the rescue operations. The rescue work was called off on late on Saturday and resumed early Sunday.

Police said one of the students had crossed the safety railing, which led to the tragedy.