A week ago, I heard that Gopi, the neighborhood cable guy had been electrocuted while surveying cables tangled on the roof of a house nearby. He suffered sever burns, and after a couple of days in the hospital, he passed away.
I was saddened to hear about the tragic death of the affable 26-year-old who worked hard to keep the neighborhood cable operations running.
After a sever thunderstorm, customers had complained of cable outage and Gopi had gone to the roof of a house in the neighborhood to check the wires. The severed cable wire had apparently tangled over a live electrical wire on the railing. When the unsuspecting Gopi tried to remove the untangled cable, he was instantly electrocuted.
RIP Gopi: DOD: 4 June 2020 (Sanjay Nagar area, Bengaluru, India). After Gopi's funeral, neighbors came together to hold an impromptu memorial. Some laminated a printout of his obituary and posted it on poles near the cable operator's office.
In urban India, it is all too common to see broadband and television cable wires hanging over electric poles and running over rooftops of houses and buildings nearby. It is common for such tangling of wires to lead to frequent accidents and electrocutions. According to a TOI article,
I was saddened to hear about the tragic death of the affable 26-year-old who worked hard to keep the neighborhood cable operations running.
After a sever thunderstorm, customers had complained of cable outage and Gopi had gone to the roof of a house in the neighborhood to check the wires. The severed cable wire had apparently tangled over a live electrical wire on the railing. When the unsuspecting Gopi tried to remove the untangled cable, he was instantly electrocuted.
RIP Gopi: DOD: 4 June 2020 (Sanjay Nagar area, Bengaluru, India). After Gopi's funeral, neighbors came together to hold an impromptu memorial. Some laminated a printout of his obituary and posted it on poles near the cable operator's office.
In urban India, it is all too common to see broadband and television cable wires hanging over electric poles and running over rooftops of houses and buildings nearby. It is common for such tangling of wires to lead to frequent accidents and electrocutions. According to a TOI article,
Every year thousands of Indians are getting electrocuted in freak accidents on streets dotted with damaged power cables. In 2015 alone, 9,986 electrocution deaths were recorded across the country with Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan each witnessing over 1,000 casualties, according to latest data available with the National Crime Records Bureau.
- DH - Cable operator electrocuted to death in RR Nagar
- TOI - Electrocution kills Nearly 30 Indians a day
- HT - Unsafe electric poles in Delhi pose a safety threat in monsoon season
- Karnataka cable operators to hold strike on January 24, screens to go blank - The Karnataka State Cable Television Operators Association have announced that they will be on strike
- Finally, govt frames rules to address those dangerously dangling cables - Now the Urban Development Department has issued a draft policy to regulate optic fibres and all other cables in public places. The draft policy – the Karnataka Municipal Corporations (Regulation of cable laying) Rules, 2015 was published on January 14th, 2016.
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