Four members of the same family drowned at a dam in India on Oct. 6 after slipping into the water while trying to take a selfie.
Newlywed bride V Nivedha, 20, died alongside family members Sneha, 22, Kanniga, 20, and Santosh, 14, who was the first to slip into the water, according to local police in the state of Tamil Nadu.
Her husband, G Perumalsamy, 25, survived and managed to save his 15-year-old sister Yuvarani Perumalsamy.
India has recorded the highest number of selfie deaths of any country in the world, according to a 2018 study.
The incident took place at Pambar dam in the southern state, according to S Prabhakar, a senior police official from the district of Krishnagiri.
“They wanted to take a selfie at this spot on the dam and they slipped,” Prabhakar told CNN.
“The water level increased while they were there.”
The bodies of the deceased were recovered immediately.
The issue has drawn the attention of authorities, which have taken to implementing no-selfie zones in areas deemed high risk.
Selfies
From fall 2011 to fall 2017, 259 people died while taking selfies, according to researchers from India. The study looked at selfie deaths reported across the world.
Researchers found that about 72.5 percent of the deaths were males and the rest were females. The highest number of selfie deaths was reported in India, followed by Russia, the United States, and Pakistan.
India accounted for more than half the global total, with 159 reported selfie deaths since 2011. The high number of selfie-related deaths in India was attributed in part to the country having a high share of the world’s population of 30-year-olds or younger.
The mean age of the victims was 22.9 years old with about half the total selfie deaths occurring among the 20 to 29-year-old age group. Another 36 percent of the deaths occurred in the 10 to 19-year-old age group.
“Drowning, transport, and fall form the topmost reasons for deaths caused by selfies. We also classified reasons for deaths due to selfie as risky behavior or non-risky behavior. Risky behavior caused more deaths and incidents due to selfies than non-risky behavior. The number of deaths in females is less due to risky behavior than non-risky behavior while it is approximately three times in males,” the researchers wrote in a summary of results.
“About three-fourth of selfie deaths occurred in males. A project called selfiecity has established that women take more selfies as compared to men. But because men are more likely to take a risk to click selfie as compared to women, it justifies the higher number of deaths and incidents for men.”
NTD staff contributed to this report.
