Kottayam, Wednesday 27 January 2010: Eighteen persons were injured, eight of them seriously, when the light commercial vehicle they were travelling in fell into a gorge at Kodikutthy, on the Kottayam-Kumily road, in Idukki district on Tuesday evening.

The police said 17 of them, from Thiruvananthapuram, mostly relatives, had gone on a pilgrimage to Palani in Tamil Nadu for the ‘choroonu’ ceremony of a child. The six-month-old child has minor injuries.

Eight of the seriously injured have been moved to Government Medical College Hospital, Kottayam. They were identified as Susheela, 57, Ambalamukku; Santhosh, 25, Mruthumala; Satheesan, 45, Kallara; Prabhakaran, 52, Kallara; Vijayakumari, 47, Mruthumala; Pratheesh, 29, Kallara; Shobhana, 52, and Shibu, 32.

Seven persons have been admitted to the taluk hospital at Kanjirapally.
They were identified as Renjith, 25, Mruthumala; Sreekumar, 24, Kallara; Girija, 41; Kallara Chinthu and her two daughters, Pavithra, 5, and Parvathy, 7.

The vehicle driver, Rajendran, has also been admitted to the taluk hospital. Laithamma, her granddaughter Sreeja and Sreeja’s six-month-old child have been admitted to a private hospital at Kanjirapally.

The police said the group had left Thiruvananthapuram on January 24. They visited Guruvayur before heading for Palani for the ‘choroonu’ ceremony of Sreeja’s daughter.