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Three conservancy workers have died due to asphyxiation while cleaning a sewage tank in Tamil Nadu’s Madurai district, police said on Friday.
The deceased have been identified as Sivakumar, Saravanakumar and Lakshmanan.
According to the family member of one of the deceased, the workers were brought in on Thursday night to remove a blockage in the motor located inside the 30-foot deep sewage tank at a pumping station in Palanganatham.
“They fell into the tank around 9.30pm on Thursday. One of them couldn’t even be retrieved. There was no ambulance and we took them to the hospital in a two-wheeler, but we couldn’t save them,” said a relative.
“They have died due to government negligence. We have lost three lives only because they didn’t use machines,” he added.
The police, however, dismissed the allegations saying that fire and rescue personnel were immediately rushed to the spot and wore masks and oxygen cylinders to recover the bodies.
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Another relative of one of the deceased told reporters that the corporation failed to use available equipment. “They chose to do this manually. The government has to take strict action and compensate the families.”
The issue reverberated in the ongoing state assembly with AIADMK legislator Sellur K Raju questioning the deaths.
Responding to them, KN Nehru, minister for municipal administration and urban and water supply, said a case has been registered and the police are investigating the matter. “The chief minister has ordered that every municipal corporation has to buy more machines to clean sewage tanks,” he said.
Nehru added that the workers went in directly and, if the Madurai corporation was aware, they would have used machines and the deaths could have been avoided.
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