Three persons, including two workers of the sanitary staff of Sulabh International, suffocated to death while working inside a 25-foot manhole at Narela Anaj Mandi in Outer Delhi on Wednesday evening. Preliminary investigation revealed the victims were working since Wednesday afternoon. They reportedly asphyxiated to death.
Police said the deceased have been identified as Ratnesh Jha (23), in-charge of sanitary staff of Sulabh International, his junior Rishi Vijay (27) and a local cleaner Govind Paswan (28) — all natives of Bihar. According to eyewitnesses, the sanitary staff of Sulabh International arrived at Gate No. 2 of Narela Anaj Mandi and started working on the sewer manhole.
When Rishi did not surface 25 minutes later, Chauhan — his in-charge — went after him to look for him. However, he too got trapped inside the noxious manhole chamber. “In the meantime, a local area cleaner, Paswan, discovered there were men trapped inside the manhole. He fished out Chauhan and dived in again but never surfaced,” an officer added. The incident came to light around 4.16 pm when a passerby made a frantic call to the police control room (PCR) and informed them about some labourers trapped inside the manhole. “After receiving the PCR call, a police team along with fire tenders rushed to the scene and started rescue ops,” a senior police officer said.
The victims were taken to Satyawadi Raja Harish Chandra Hospital where three were pronounced dead on arrival,” the officer added.