7 DIE CLEANING SEPTIC TANK IN ANDHRA

HYDERABAD: Seven workers of a private poultry farm died of asphyxiation while manually cleaning a septic tank (drainage pit) in Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district on Friday.

Initially, four workers went underground to clean the tank without wearing protective gear but fainted soon after inhaling poisonous gas, police said. When they did not come out of the tank, another four went inside, only to meet with the same fate, police said. Security authorities of the Sri Venkateshwara Hatcheries Limited at the district’s Moram village then raised an alarm and local villagers rushed to the spot.

They broke open the tank to rescue the workers. While one of them was found dead, the other seven were pulled out in unconscious state. Three of the workers died on the way to the hospital while three others died while undergoing treatment.

One worker survived and his condition is said to be stable, while another worker was shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital in Chittoor, police said.

Prima facie it appeared that the sanitation supervisor of the hatcheries failed in assessing the situation in the tank before sending the workers inside, police said, addingthesewerhadchemical residue. Police said a case of causing death by negligence had been registered. The manager of the plant fled immediately after the incident came to light.