The SUV rammed into a railing of a culvert at Munagala and slided into the brimming canal

Six people drowned as the vehicle in which they were travelling plunged into a canal in Telangana's Suryapet district, a senior police official said on Saturday. The accident occurred on Friday night. National Disaster Response Force teams retrieved the bodies. The SUV rammed into a railing of a culvert at Munagala and slided into the brimming canal, he said.

All the deceased were employees of a private hospital. They were on their way home in Hyderabad after attending a wedding function at Nadigudem near Kodad, a police official said. Other friends following in another vehicle saw the SUV plunging into the canal connected to Nagarjuna Sagar reservoir and alerted the locals, who, in turn, alerted the police.

The rescue operation could not be immediately taken up as the water was flowing fast and it was pitch dark, the police official said.

The bodies were being sent for postmortem, a local police official said.

