Three workers were killed and several others injured when a portion of an under-construction structure collapsed at an industrial site in Hosur, on the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border, police said. Police confirmed the deaths on Thursday and said the collapse took place at Vedarapalli, within the SIPCOT police station limits in Krishnagiri district.
The accounts differ on the number hurt. One said four workers were badly injured and moved to a private hospital, where they were being treated. The other put the injured at about ten. Several workers were trapped under the debris after the structure came down, and rescuers had to work through the rubble to reach them.
Police said the crew was laying concrete for a roof built in an arch shape when the scaffolding failed. One account placed the work at Balaji Gears, where a building was coming up, and said the timber centring gave way as concrete went into a mould. The other called the premises a footwear manufacturing unit. Both located the accident in the SIPCOT industrial area and said the structure was still being built.
The dead were reportedly identified as Kumareshan, 39, Michael, 26, and Srinivasan, 26, in one of the reports. Cranes were used to bring the bodies out of the debris, while police and fire and rescue teams cleared the rubble and checked whether anyone was still trapped.
District Collector Dinesh Kumar and Superintendent of Police Anita visited the spot and inspected the site. The collector said 17 workers were on the construction site when the main entrance structure came down, and asked the Hosur deputy superintendent of police to act firmly against everyone responsible, including the engineer who designed it and others who worked on the job. One report named him Dinesh Kumar; the other referred to him as Dinesh.
Preliminary investigations pointed to too few supporting pillars and inadequate arrangements to carry the weight of the wet concrete, one report said. Investigators suspect that basic safety precautions were not in place during the construction work. Those findings are yet to be confirmed.
Rs 8 lakh will be paid to each bereaved family from the Tamil Nadu Construction Workers Welfare Board Fund, according to one report.
(With inputs from media reports)