In a replay of recent tragedies in Delhi, three sanitation workers in their 20s suffocated to death inside a narrow sewerage line in Noida on Thursday afternoon, making it the 15th such death in the national capital since July.
A local present at the accident site said, "The incident occurred at around 4-5 p.m. in the evening, but no one from the police, who came at the site, nor the city magistrate, did anything."
“A rescue team reached the spot and it took them around 2 hours to get the bodies out of the tank,” The Hindureported quoting Arun Singh, Superintendent of police (City), Noida.
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“A committee has been set up and a report will be filed in a week. Strict action will be taken against the guilty,” said Rakesh Mishra, additional chief executive officer told The Hindu.
The incident comes days after the Delhi High Court had sought a time-bound implementation of the procedure for cleaning sewers and septic tanks.
According to ANI reports, in all the death cases of the sewer cleaners recorded so far, none of the workers were equipped with masks or any other safety gear.
Even though manual scavenging is banned by law it continues nevertheless. Earlier in August, the authorities in Delhi had decided to fully mechanise cleaning sewers and penalise agencies continuing manual cleaning and giving punishment up to life imprisonment.
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According to ANI, the Lieutenant Governor has also set up a committee recently to examine various measures for the implementation of 'The Prohibition of Employment of Manual Scavenger and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013' and rules.
Earlier Cases:
On August 07, three men died after inhaling toxic fumes while cleaning a sewer pipe in southeast Delhi's Lajpat Nagar. In another incident on August 20, one worker died and two were taken ill while cleaning a sewer at the city government-run Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital (LNJP) in central Delhi. On August 12, Toxic sewer gases killed two brothers cleaning a sewage tank without safety gear at a mall in east Delhi.
In the same month, the city recorded another tragic sewer death incident when four men died while cleaning a tank containing poisonous sewage in south Delhi's Ghitorni. Another two young men died in the national capital last month while cleaning the sewer manually. According to reports, none of them were equipped with any safety gears.
(WITH ANI INPUTS)
