Two sewer cleaners — residents of Janakpuri in West Delhi and engaged by the Noida Authority via a contractor — died in a sewer tank in Salarpur in Noida on Friday, officials said.
Though police are ascertaining the cause of the death of Hamid and Aslam late on Thursday, preliminary investigation suggests that they suffocated to death inside the sewer tank.
Police, the Fire Department, and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) were called in for rescue, officials said. The bodies of the workers were retrieved after nearly four-hour rescue operation by a team of the NDRF, said an official of the disaster response force.
“We reached the spot at 3.15 am and began operations at 3.20 am. The first body was recovered at 6.25 am and the second at 7.20 am,” said Jeetender Yadav, who led the nine-member NDRF team.
The Noida Authority has dismissed a contractual Junior Engineer (JE) from job and proposed police action against the contractor. “The JE has been dismissed and a complaint is being made against the contractor with police to register an FIR over the lapses that led to the death of the two workers,” Noida Authority’s Officer on Special Duty Rajesh Kumar Singh said.