Chennai: In a freak accident, a 21-year-old migrant worker got trapped in the sand that caved in a freshly trenched drainage pathway and died of suffocation while his co-worker is battling for his life at Stanley Hospital, on Saturday evening.
The deceased has been identified as Pulisan Kisku, (21), of Thana, Jarmundi Dumka, Jharkhand, and the injured is identified Sirajudeen, (22), also from Jharkhand.
They were part of the group tasked to lay drainage pipes for the extension building for Stanley Hospital on the campus. Sand caved in at around 5.30 pm trapping the two in the 6 ft deep pit while other workers moved to safety. The Outpost of the City Police present at the Stanley Hospital was informed besides sounding the distress call to the TNFRS control room.
A team of TNFRS personnel rushed to the scene and managed to pull out Sirajudeen alive from the pit. He was rolled into the same hospital where he was working and was being treated in the intensive care unit. However, Pulisan Kisku asphyxiated to death by the time he was pulled out of the sand pile. City Police registered a case and are interrogating the contractors and as well as the site supervisors.
The co-workers blamed the contractors and the site engineers for not ensuring safety of the workers. The entire pipe-laning work was called off soon after the incident.
