Newlyweds' selfie costs four lives in south India

The river Pambar is a popular stop for tourists and photographers in the region. Photo / Flickr.com

A newly married bride and three of her family were killed after posing for a photo at a famous Tamil Nadu landmark.

Police for the southern state say that the four drownings occurred at the Pambar dam near a reservoir where visitors are taking risky selfies.

Six of the party were holding hands and wading into the water above the dam to pose for pictures when one of them slipped. The others were pulled over in the current.

It was reported that the husband was able to save his sister, but his new wife and the others were swept over the dam and drowned.

The Hindu newspaper reported that the married couple were visiting relatives in the area and had gone to the dam with family.

The couple were identified as G. Perumalsamy, 24, and his wife V. Nivedha, 20, who were married the just weeks before the tragedy. The teenagers got into trouble in the water when the young brother, 14, slipped pulling over his two sisters, 18 and 19, along with newly married Nivedha and her sister in law.

The Pambar dam: The last fortnight has seen 15 drowning incidents in the district.

Only one of them was able to be rescued from the water by the husband, while the others were lost under the water. The bodies were later recovered by police.

This tragic outing is the latest of a series of selfie-related incidents in the country.
India has the highest number of recorded selfie deaths in the world.

The US National Library of Medicine recorded 259 deaths in the country between 2011 and 2017, with Russia and Pakistan in second and third place. 72.5 per cent of selfie deaths reported are men.

In May, in the state of Haryana, three teens were killed taking photos on railway tracks. Leaping out of the path of an approaching train, they were killed by a train coming in the other direction.

In 2017 the state of Karnataka launched a campaign warning of the dangers of taking risky selfies to impress friends online, after a separate incident killed four students.
Some cities like Mumbai have started putting 'no-selfie zone' signage up, as a warning to the country's 300 million smartphone users.