Source : The Hindu Date : 20.06.2009
2 sanitation workers killed in freak mishap
Staff Reporter
| The victims belong to Bathuva village in Srikakulam district |
— PHOTO: CH.VIJAYA BHASKAR 
Tragic end: Fire and emergency services personnel fishing out the body of a worker drowned in an underground drainage line in Vijayawada on Friday.
VIJAYAWADA: In a freak mishap, two scavengers working on contract basis in the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) were drowned and killed in an underground drainage line on Friday.
The victims were identified as Pothireddi Appala Naidu, 25, and Jammi Kannayya, 25. Both of them were from Bathuva village of Srikakulam district and presently residing at Ajit Singh Nagar. The incident occurred on the road stretch between Chennupati petrol bunk and Jammichettu centre around 11 a.m., when the two scavengers got down through a manhole to de-silt the underground drainage line.
Appala Naidu was the first to go in with the help of a rope and fell unconscious. When he apparently left the rope and began getting washed away in the stream, Kannayya went to his rescue and he too fell unconscious, only to be drowned in the 22-ft.-deep drain.
A few scavengers working in the vicinity raised an alarm and the local people alerted the police. Two fire tenders were rushed to the spot and the fire personnel began the rescue operation. Wearing oxygen masks, they got down into the drain and around noon fished out the body of Appala Naidu.
However, it took about two more hours for them to fish out the body of Kannayya.
District Fire Officer S. Venkateswara Rao attributed the deaths to emanation of methanol gas from the drain. “The gas reserves are high at this point. Even after wearing oxygen masks, our personnel waited for a few minutes to get into the already uncapped drainage, as they waited for the evaporation of the gas,” he explained.
Mayor M.V. Ratna Bindu and Municipal Commissioner P.S. Pradyumna found fault with the contractor for not informing the sanitation wing of the VMC before commencing the works.
“The contractor is at fault. An enquiry will be conducted and the guilty will be punished. We will force the contractor, who engaged these scavengers, to pay the ex gratia to the family members of the victims,” they said.
City secretaries of the CPI and the CPI (M), K. Subba Raju and R. Raghu, respectively, Praja Rajyam Party MLAs Velampalli Srinivas (Vijayawada West) and Yalamanchili Ravi (Vijayawada East), who reached the spot, expressed regret over the incident and demanded that the VMC use modern technology to de-silt the drains
“It is unfair on the part of the civic body to engage men in such dangerous jobs, even though technology is available to undertake the job with the help of machines,” they said.
