5 die of suffocation in septic tank in C’garh

Five people, including a woman, died Sunday of suspected asphyxiation in a septic tank at a house in Chhattisgarh’s Jashpur district, police said.

Two sanitation workers climbed down into the tank in Pandripani village, around 450km from the state capital, to remove wooden planks, but did not come out, an officer said.

Subsequently, two more persons went inside but did not come out either, after which the house owner’s wife climbed down into the newly-built septic tank. When none of them came out, a child from the neighbourhood alerted the villagers who rushed to the spot, he said.

The five were pulled out and taken to a local hospital where they were declared dead.

The deceased were identified as Savitri, 45; Badu Tam, 60; Paramjeet Paikra, 19; Ramjeevan Ram, 35; and Ishwar Sai, 40.

Prime facie, it is suspected that they died of suffocation but the exact cause of their deaths will be known in the autopsy report, the officer said, adding that a case has been registered in connection with the incident.

The deaths come a week after five people died due to asphyxiation while cleaning a septic tank at a housing complex in New Delhi’s Moti Nagar area.

According to Bezwada Wilson of the Sanitation Workers Movement group, more than 1,800 people across India have died while cleaning septic tanks or sewers since 2014, when the Supreme Court issued a ruling to bolster a 2013 Act that prohibits employing people to clean human solid waste by hand.

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