Tragedy struck Guntur district on Friday evening. Five students and a guru of Madipadu Vedic School in Achampetta mandal drowned in Krishna River.
Students from different states stay at Shweta Sringachala Veda and Vedanta Gurukul school in Madipadu to study vedas and upanishads. Eight students and their guru went into the Krishna River to pay their salutations to the Sun when the incident happened.

At first, five students and their guru went to the river. A student drowned after not being able to gauge the depth of the river. Another person who was in the process of saving them, also drowned. The rest of them who went to save them also got stuck. Five students and a total of six teachers drowned in the water.

Among the students killed were Shiva Sharma (14) of Madhya Pradesh, Nitish Kumar Dixit (15), Hirshat Shukla (15), Shubham Trivedi (15) and Anush Man Shukla (14) of Uttar Pradesh. Along with them, Guru Kethepalli Venkata Subrahmanyam (26) of Narasaraopeta in Guntur district were also killed. The three students on the shore fled from there in fear. They were searched by the police and handed over to the school management.

Five students and a guru died during an attempt to rescue a student who fell into a pit while they were bathing in the Krishna River. They tried hard to get out by holding each other's hands in vain.

However, they fell into the pit and died. As they held hands to help each other, there were drawn into the pit. Achampet, Sattenapalli CIs Bhaskara Reddy, Narasimha Rao and SI Manikrishna reached the spot and fished out the bodies.

Governor Biswa Bhusan Harichandan expressed his grief over the incient and stated that the educational institutions' managements of must ensure safety of students. Andhra Pradesh Education Minister Adimulapu Suresh also expressed his shock over the drowning incident and directed the school managements to focus on safety of students.