7 suffocated to death while cleaning hotel sewer in Gujarat's Vadodara

Seven persons, including four sanitation workers, died due to asphyxiation on Saturday while cleaning sewer of a hotel in Gujarat's Vadodara district, officials said. The incident happened at a hotel in Fartikui village in Dabhoi tehsil, about 30 km from Vadodara city. Three employees of the hotel were also among those killed.

"When one sanitation worker failed to come out of the manhole, others went inside. All of them died due to asphyxiation," district collector Kiran Zaveri told PTI.

Read: Five Sanitation Workers Died After Inhaling Toxic Fumes While Cleaning A Sewer In Delhi

About four months ago, a similar incident occured wherein three labourers died after inhaling toxic gas while cleaning a sewage treatment plant of a local civic body in Maharashtra's Thane. The dead men were daily wage labourers and had no formal training in sewage cleaning.

Police said that the labourers were hired by a civic contractor, but were not given any protective gear, like masks. 

The incident took when the labourers were cleaning a chocked valve in a chamber of the non-operational sewage treatment plant located in Thane's Mira Road. Police said one of the labourers climbed down into the sewage treatment plant to clean it. He, however, felt suffocated and collapsed. When two other labourers went inside to check on him, they died after inhaling toxic gas.

The dead labourers were identified as Muzaffar Moulik (24), Rafique Mandal (50) and Mofjum (18).

Another labourer, 17, who also inhaled the toxic fumes, was admitted to a hospital where he was undergoing treatment, police said.

The bodies were sent to a local hospital for postmortem, the official said, adding that a probe was underway.