Seven workers have died and six others injured after an overloaded storage tank collapsed in the food processing unit of Rajguru Pharma in Aliabad industrial area in Vijayapura district in Karnataka. The incident occurred late evening on Monday, December 4, and rescue operations continued till Tuesday, December 5.
Due to the collapse of the storage tank, hundreds of maize bags fell on the workers and trapped them. Rescue personnel used earthmovers to bring out the workers from under the pile. Speaking to TNM, Vijayapura’s Superintendent of Police, Sonawane Rishikesh Bhagawan said, “There were 13 workers in total, out of which three received minor injuries at the time of the collapse. They were not trapped. Eight people were trapped. One person was rescued and sent to the hospital for treatment. The rest have died and their bodies have been recovered.”
He added that since the structure had collapsed, rescue operations have not concluded and they are still looking around just to be cautious. The deceased have been identified as Krishna Kumar, Rajesh Kumar Mukhiya, Sambu Mukhiya, Lukho Yadav, Rambrich Mukhiya, Ramabalaka Mukhiya and Dulhara Chand Mukhiya. All of them were natives of Bihar. The injured are Sonu Karamchand, Ravish Kumar, Anil, Kalmeshwar Mukhiya, Kishore Hazarimal Jain and Prakash Dhumagoda.
The FIR names the owner, Kishore Jain, and the warehouse supervisor, Praveen Chandra, as accused. According to the FIR, the accused did not take any precautionary measures despite knowing that the machinery was under repair.
Minister for Large and Medium Industries and Vijayapura district in charge MB Patil took stock of the situation early on Tuesday and said, “A tragic incident has occurred, and our primary focus is recovering the bodies at the earliest. I am receiving regular updates from the Deputy Commissioner and Superintendent of Police. Following the autopsy, our commitment is to ensure the bodies of the deceased migrant labourers reach their families and home states.”
“We're not sure why this happened yet and cannot come to conclusions. We're going to figure out why and if the owner did anything wrong. We'll find out who is responsible and take legal action against them. I will also talk to the Chief Minister about providing compensation from the government to the families of the deceased and those injured. Even though they're not from our state, it is our responsibility to help,” he added.
A protest was also being held by workers who alleged that such incidents had happened earlier as well and two people had died. The protesters also said that in the earlier incident, the bodies were not handed over to them and no compensation was paid to the families of the deceased. On being questioned about this, Patil promised to inquire into this. "If this has happened, we will not allow it to be covered up. We will make sure that the families get compensation," he said.