Recently in Tamil Nadu, an Indian State, a husband and wife and their two children aged 1 and 11/2 years were electrocuted, while travelling in a motorcycle, when a 11 kV high voltage overhead power line broke and fell on them. I wonder how this could have happened. The neutral of the HV line is grounded at the substation and earth guard is provided at pole cross arms. So before the snapped HV line could touch the victims and cause electrocution of them, it would have been grounded by the earth guard at the pole cross arm and rendered harmless. But, sadly, this was not what happened. I do not know where things could have gone wrong to have caused this mishap. Please comment.