KARWAR: Incessant rain has thrown life out of gear, but now it has made death a precarious proposition too. In Keni village of Ankola taluk in Uttara Kannada district, residents were forced to carry an 80-year-old woman’s body through nearly neck-deep water across the stream for cremation, endangering their own lives.The village, around 20km from Karwar, got a cremation ground built on the outskirts, on the bank of the stream, a few months ago. A footbridge was built to reach the ground. Last week, as the stream was brimming with rain water, the bridge was washed away. Villagers said the construction was substandard and the structure couldn’t last a single monsoon. The village has no boat either to cross the stream.The water level at KRS dam crossed 119 feet on ThursdayOn Thursday, 80-year-old Susheela died in the village. It fell upon the villagers to carry wood for the pyre across the stream. With no bridge, they carried piles of wood on their heads to prevent it from getting wet, wading through nearly 5.5feet-deep water. Then, many more villagers came together to carry Susheela’s body to the cremation ground, watching out for each other as the water rose to their necks in some places. They made it to the other side after a few tense hours.Prasanna Gaonkar, a relative of Susheela, blamed the administration for failing to get a sturdy structure built despite complaints from residents of poor-quality work being done on the footbridge. “What if there was some accident as we carried the body? One or many of us could have been washed away in the stream,” a villager said. Residents demanded another footbridge be built on at the earliest.

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