: The idyllic village of Mamala, just 15 kilometres from the city, woke up to the tragic news of four members of a family dying in the car accident on Monday.
As the news spread, people from even far off places, flocked to the accident spot. The accident spot along the Kochi-Dhanushkodi National Highway was soon jammed with long queues of vehicles.
Soon, traffic along the route was thrown out of gear leaving police to move in and ease the movement of vehicles along the stretch. However, the police move to block entry of public to the accident site provided little respite as the more inquisitive managed to invent other access points.
Soon thereafter, rumour mills started working overtime as several theories began doing the rounds about how the accident happened. One such theory was that the car had deviated from the highway near a hairpin curve and fell into the quarry after taking a pocket road.
"This small pocket road from the highway has a steep slope, which will certainly take the vehicle straight down without breaking the side-fencing, said Elias, a local resident.
Meanwhile, the situation got worse by the minute and it got to a point where the onlookers posed hurdles to the smooth rescue operations.
“Many were just watching and taking pictures on their mobiles, which is totally appalling’’, said a top police officer. In fact, many of them were hindering the rescue operation by standing over the hydraulic crane.
