A government official in India found himself in troubled waters recently after a failed attempt at taking a selfie went from bad to worse. Rajesh Vishwas was allegedly taking a photograph of himself at the Kherkatta Dam in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh when he managed to drop his phone into the reservoir.
The food inspector was apparently so distraught at losing his $1,200 Samsung that his first reaction was to call in local divers. The divers, however, were unable to locate the device. Fearing that there was sensitive data stored on the phone, Vishwas sought permission to drain the reservoir in order to look for it.
According to the BBC news, Vishwas said he had verbal permission from an official to drain “some water into a nearby canal”, adding that the official said it “would in fact, benefit the farmers who would have more water”.
The pump ran for several days, emptying out roughly 440,000 gallons of water before the phone was located. By that point, of course, the phone was completely waterlogged and damaged beyond repair.
Meanwhile, Vishwas’ superiors had caught wind of the shenanigans at the reservoir and promptly suspended him for wasting water. “He has been suspended until an inquiry. Water is an essential resource, and it cannot be wasted like this,” Priyanka Shukla, a Kanker district official, said.
Water resources are valuable in countries such as India. It experienced its hottest March on record earlier this year, and with the El Niño weather effect, the country is predicting a high possibility of drought conditions later in 2023.
This is one example when putting the device in rice isn’t going to fix things.
[Via Digital Trends]
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