3 construction workers die in Coimbatore while cleaning septic tank
COIMBATORE: Three persons died of asphyxiation after entering a septic tank at a pig farm at Kondaiyampalaym on the city’s outskirts on Thursday. All the victims were from Dharmapuri district, eking out a living in the city’s booming construction industry. Sources said that the trio — G Rajappan (38) from Gopinathampatti, P Vediappan (29) and P Vediappan (26) both from Mampatti near Harur — were roped in to manually clean the tank for a paltry Rs 200 over their daily wages (Rs 500-Rs 600) despite the Madras High Court banning manual scavenging.
According to sources, the farm owner N Subramaniam (70) approached Rajappan with a job offer of cleaning the septic tank on his farm at Poonthakaran Thottam. After accepting the offer, Rajappan accompanied by five others (K Saravanan, L Ramesh and Babu being the other three) reached the farm around 11 am after giving their usual work a skip.
Around 11.30 am, Rajappan climbed down the 10-foot-deep septic tank through a manhole. No sooner had he entered the tank than toxic fumes overwhelmed him and he collapsed. Watching the tragedy unfold from above, Vediappan and Vediappan went to Rajappan’s rescue, but they too succumbed to the toxic fumes, said the other workers from the group.
K Saravanan told TNIE that Rajappan came with the job offer and all of them accompanied him to the farm, little knowing that a tragedy awaited them. L Ramesh said that Subramaniam developed contacts with Rajappan as the latter used to buy pork from the former. “I was supposed to be the fourth to enter the tank. However, after seeing Rajappan and the others collapse, I rushed to get a rope to help them out.
Though I returned in a few minutes, it was too late by then,” he added.
The three deceased are representatives of how migration to urban pockets from barren districts with no job prospect lands the gullible masses in hazardous professions. Mariappan, a Dharmapuri man and a neighbour of Rajappan, told TNIE, “Around 200 migrant families have been living at Idaiyarpalayam near Kovilmedu for over a decade now as there are no employment opportunity at our native districts. We get a daily wage of Rs 300-Rs 600 in the construction sector. Of late, a few among us have started taking up manual scavenging as it pays more for a two-hour stint than our regular work. However, I never take up such work for the fear of meeting some mishap.
The bodies of the three persons were retrieved from the tank by the Fire and Rescue Service personnel. The Kovilpalayam police registered a case and were inquiring.