Toronto: An engineering student from Thiruvananthapuram has drowned in a lake at the Halliburton county of Ontario, Canada. The accident happened on Tuesday morning as students of the University of Toronto attended a survey camp in the east-central Canadian province.
The deceased has been identified as Anand Baiju, 18. He was doing his second-year engineering course and arrived at the venue of the survey camp, near the Gull Lake, at Minden, along with 50 other students.
The tragedy occurred around 5 am. Classmates said Anand's hand might have slipped while he was holding on to a floating deck at an area where there was neck-deep water. He was taken out of the waters before rescue teams arrived. Reports indicated he had died before he could be taken to the hospital. Anand will be buried in Toronto.
Anand is the son of Baiju Narayanan and Sreeja Baiju of Neeramankara, Thiruvananthapuram. His sister Aswathi is a school student. The family had been living in Malton, near Toronto, for the past eight years.
Relatives said Anand wasn't trained in swimming. The police are investigating.
The university said in a statement that the students had gone to the area for studies on land survey, geography etc as part of their course. Life guards were not available as swimming wasn't part of the studies. However, relatives of Anand have slammed poor safety measures. They asked why life-saving equipment were not provided and there was no warning against entering the lake.
The university had acquired the 175-acre property nearly 100 years ago for civil and mineral engineering students to conduct studies, including survey and project management. Minden is located some 200 km from Toronto and 100 km off Peterborough.
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