Boy drowns in floodwaters near Erode

Erode: A six-year-old boy drowned after being swept away by floodwaters in a stream near Thalavadi in Erode district on Sunday evening. The body of Madhan Karthik, son of Rangaraj of Diginarai village, was recovered on Monday evening. He was a Class II student.Following heavy rain in the Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve, the stream in Diginarai village was overflowing on Sunday evening.Karthik went to see the floodwaters after telling his parents, but he did not return home.His parents and relatives searched for him near the stream, but they did not find him. It later emerged that the boy was swept away by the floodwaters. They informed the Thalavadi police, who rushed to the spot and joined searches for the boy. Later, fire and rescue services personnel from Hasanur also reached the scene and joined the searches. They retrieved the boy's body from the stream close to Swarnavathi river in Chamarajanagar in Karnataka on Monday. The river is the tributary of the Cauvery. The body was sent to the Sathyamangalam government hospital for postmortem. A case was registered.