Jaipur, April 25 (IANS) An eight-year-old girl was killed and at least 22 people were injured when the roof of a water tank collapsed in a Rajasthan village, police said on Saturday.
The incident occurred on Friday evening at Solankiya village in Barmer district, over 600 kms from here.
The village with a population of over 2,000 has been reeling under water scarcity. Many women had assembled at a 25-feet deep tank after they heard water was being supplied to the tank, a police official told IANS.
An eyewitness and a resident of a nearby village, P.S Rathore told IANS that many women “rushed to the water tank and there was a mad rush to fetch water”.
“Suddenly the roof of the water tank collapsed and these woman fell down in the tank that had just over two feet water at that time,” Rathore said.
“As the roof the tank collapsed, an eight-year-old girl died on the spot while at least 22 were injured. Four of the critically injured have been referred to Jodhpur,” the official said.
“We usually get water supply once in 15 days during the summer season,” said Rathore.
“People don’t get water supply regularly. At times, villages are supplied water once in seven days and during summer time it is sometime even once in 15 days and that too for barely 1-2 hours,” said Durgesh Singh Rajpurohit, a local journalist.
Rajpurohit said villagers have to sometimes travel for 7-10 km daily to fetch water.