Four contract workers died after they entered a manhole of the Hyderabad Metro Water Supply & Sewerage Board in the Madhapur area in Hyderabad on Saturday. Another person, who also entered the manhole in an attempt to rescue them has been hospitalised.
Deputy Mayor of Hyderabad, Mohammed Baba Fasiuddin, told The News Minute that the workers, who were hired to extend a sewer line between two manholes, entered the 11.5ft deep, 3.5ft wide manhole on Saturday afternoon.
“They went in one after the other. When the first one did not come out, the second labourer went in. When both did not come out the third person went in, and then the fourth labourer went in,” he said.
“A 108 ambulance employee who was nearby tied a rope around his waist and entered to check on these four. He could not breath inside as the oxygen level was too less. Then he came back,” he added.
Fasiuddin stated that the contractor in charge of the work had hired unskilled workers who did not know the basic procedures to be followed before entering the manhole. “A simple way to check the oxygen levels is by dropping a burning paper inside the manhole. They had not done that. They did not have any protective gear.”
The contractor, who has been booked for culpable homicide, is currently on the run.
The four deceased workers have been identified as Satyanarayana, Nagesh, Srinivas and Chandu.
Fasiuddin said that he had met the families of three of them. “Two men hailed from Mahaboobnagar and Karimnagar, while the other two were from Hyderabad,” he said.
On why men were sent into the manhole instead of using machinery, he said, "As the manhole was not blocked, machines were not used. The work was to connect one manhole with another."