Chennai: The bodies of all 16 Indians killed in a fire accident in Bahrain on Sunday were brought to Chennai on Wednesday morning. A Gulf Air flight brought the bodies.
The Tamil Nadu government has arranged more than a dozen vehicles to take the bodies to their villages.
The 16 Indians who died in the fire were mostly construction workers and sole bread winners in their family.
Twenty-five year old Sivaprakasam, was one of the 16 people from Tamil Nadu who were killed in a fire accident in Bahrain.
Sivaprakasam lived in a village in Chennai - Villupuram - and had taken a loan of Rs 1 lakh to go to Bahrain as a construction worker. Just a week ago, over a phone conversation, he'd promised to send money for his mother's eye operation . But that was not to be.
Says Sivaprakasam's mother, Malar, "He told me that he would do an eye operation after getting payment. But I lost my son now, and my eyesight. What will I do now?"
In the neighbouring Sethu-raayam-kuppam village of Cuddalore district Muthulakshmi holds on to her three children. She wonders how she'll tell them that their father Rajavel will not come back.
Rajavel too had taken a loan of Rs 1.5 lakh to travel to Bahrain.
Rajavel's wife Muthulakshmi says, "I'm left with two small boys and a girl. Two years back my husband went there so we could survive. Now he's gone. The loan amount is pending. In two years I've lost everything."
Those who died in the fire tragedy were all construction workers who left their homes so their families would have enough to survive on.
But when the flames ended 16 lives, it simultaneously ended all hope of survival for the 16 families left behind.
(With inputs from Shahnawaz in Cuddalore district and Yogita Limaye)
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