The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Three die while cleaning tank in Pammal tannery

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Wednesday, Apr 16, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Three die while cleaning tank in Pammal tannery

Special Correspondent

Toxic fumes suspected to have caused death

— Photo: A. Muralitharan

Killer tank: The effluent tank in Eswaran Nagar, Pammal, which claimed three lives on Tuesday.

TAMBARAM: Three men died, reportedly after inhaling toxic fumes, when they entered a tank filled with effluents at a tannery in Pammal on Tuesday afternoon.

The Shankar Nagar police identified the victims as O. Ravi, Rajendran, and Muthuraman. Ravi and Muthuraman used to clean drainage and effluent tanks regularly, while Rajendran was an employee of the tannery located on Mosque Street at Eswaran Nagar.

Around 2 p.m., Ravi and Muthuraman entered the tank and are reported to have fallen after losing their consciousness.

Noticing this, Rajendran and his colleague Shahjahan jumped into the tank in an attempt to rescue them, but they too fainted.

Noticing the commotion, other workers from nearby industrial units rushed to the spot and pulled out the four men and rushed them to a private hospital on Anna Road.

Three of them, Ravi, Rajendran and Muthuraman, did not respond to treatment and died. Shahjahan was shifted to a private hospital in Guindy.

Relatives turn angry

Angry relatives of the victims came to the hospital in large numbers and made an attempt to prevent police from taking the bodies for postmortem to the Chromepet Government Hospital.

They said unless the staff of the company were arrested, they would not leave the spot.

However, police officials told them they had already initiated action against some of them.

It was only on Sunday that three workers were hospitalised after inhaling toxic fumes while cleaning a tank inside a tannery in neighbouring Nagalkeni.

The Shankar Nagar police said they had registered a case under Section 304 (a) of Indian Penal Code and they had detained a couple of persons from the company for carelessness.

Stating that inhaling of toxic fumes was the cause for death, they added the exact cause could be ascertained only after they received the post-mortem report.

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