The last video posted by travel influencer Aanvi Kamdar who fell to her death into a 300ft gorge at Mangaon in Raigad was about the inexpensive places to visit on the August 15 long weekend.
Kamdar, a chartered accountant who resided in Malad, made reels about monsoon tourism. On July 16, the day she died, she was on a fun trip with six friends from Mumbai to Kumbhe waterfalls. Known by her handle @theglocaljournal on Instagram, Kamdar’s last video was posted on July 15, a day prior to her fatal fall. She has 2,56,000 followers on Instagram.
Her LinkedIn profile describes her as an ‘associate community manager’. “I collaborate with CXOs, entrepreneurs, founders to build their voices and nurture communities on the platform. I focus on strategy, analytics, partnerships, content building, and more to enhance the user experience and engagement. I am a chartered accountant. Before joining LinkedIn, I worked at Deloitte India for five years,” states her profile.
Kumbhe waterfalls are nearly 15 km from Nizampur village on Pune-Mangaon Road. Assistant police inspector Nivrutti Borhade from Mangaon police station said the spot from where she fell is very dangerous even though the waterfall can be seen from there.
Borhade said, “The friends were walking one behind the other, clicking photographs of each other. It was day time but hardly any tourists were there as it was raining heavily. When Kamdar fell and shouted, the group managed to find a villager who helped in contacting us. We brought in the rescue team but it took around an hour for us to reach the spot. The incident occurred around 11am and we reached by around 12.15pm. The rescue team then went down rappelling, but could bring her out only by 4.30pm.”
Sagar Dahimbekar was part of the nine-member Sahyadri Vanyajeev Rakshanarth Samajik Sanstha (SVRSS) rescue team from Kolad. He said, “It took us around 20 minutes to go down. When we finally spotted her, there was no movement in her but we felt her pulse. She was brought up 100ft on a stretcher as there was no setup of rope. For the remaining 200ft, the stretcher was pulled up with the rope.” She was then rushed to Mangaon taluka hospital in an ambulance where she succumbed to her injuries.