Kerala - Kochi   

Two workers killed as earth caves in

DANGEROUS GROUND: The construction site where the two workers died on Sunday.

KOCHI: In the second construction-site accident in the Smart City neighbourhood in less than three months, two young workers, a Malayali and a Bengali, perished on Sunday morning when earth caved in on them. A third worker survived with a minor injury to his hand.

Shilin Das alias Chotu Das, 19, of Jaipalgurhi in West Bengal and Ali, 30, of Kunjattukara near Aluva, died instantaneously in the landslip at the construction site of a private apartment township coming up just across Infopark at Eadchira near Kakkanad. The 8.5-acre township, which when completed would consist of five five-storey apartment ‘towers’ and nine luxury bungalows with a man-made lake, is being built by Olive Builders and Developers.

Kunhappan, 55, a daily-wage worker living close to the site, said the accident occurred around 9.30 a.m. On being told that two workers had been trapped under a huge mound of earth, he rushed to the site. A JCB earthmover was trying to remove the earth and dig out the trapped workers. However, the earthmover’s dig had, while removing the mud, decapitated the teenage Bengali worker. Seeing the headless body, one of the workers engaged in the rescue fell unconscious, Mr. Kunhappan said.

The police said the three workers were engaged in laying pipes to drain out rainwater collected on the work site when the earth, dug out for the piling work of the building complexes and dumped close to the proposed pipeline, caved in on them. A large pool of water, the size of three swimming pools put together, had collected on the work site which is on the belly of a hill close to the proposed Smart City campus.

Sub-inspector M.B. Latheef of Thrikkakara police said the body of Shilin Das would be sent to his native village in West Bengal in a day or two. The contractors would be booked for the deaths. Post-mortem was done on both bodies at the Ernakulam General Hospital and Das’s body was embalmed so that it would not decay before it is cremated.

An executive of Olive Builders told The Hindu that the workers had been hired by the sub-contractor Landec who had been assigned the civil piling work. The subcontractor had insured all the workers.

She said Olive and Landec would take care of the hospital expenses as well as the transport and funeral costs of Das. All legitimate compensation would be paid to the families of the dead.

She said the proposed township had been named ‘Kalista’ and many of the flats in its five ‘towers’ had already been sold. She claimed that all security precautions had been taken at the work site.

However, local politicians and neighbours said construction workers at the huge building project were not sufficiently protected against possible accidents.

They pointed out that a couple of months before, two workers had fallen to their death from a multi-storey building in Olive’s Courtyard township, which is just a hailing distance from Kalista. (Courtyard, when completed, will have four 18-storey buildings and a 15-storey one). Locals alleged that trade union leaders, who got weekly kickback from the contractors, were least bothered about the job safety of the construction workers, especially of the migrants.

Kerala Kettida Nirmana Thozhilali Union (TUCI) district secretary T.B. Mini alleged that unsafe working conditions and a total disregard for the life of the migrant labourers were the cause for Sunday’s death due to landslip at the work site near Smart City.

She urged the authorities to tighten their monitoring of the construction projects and ensure that the families of the dead got sufficient monetary compensation.

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