Toxic fumes: Three well-cleaners suffocate to death

Two other labourers hospitalised in critical condition

MUZAFFARABAD: Two brothers and a labourer suffocated to death while two other people fell unconscious after inhaling poisonous gases while cleaning a well in Samhani area of district Bhimber of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) on Saturday.

According to Bhimber Deputy Commissioner (DC) Mirza Arshad, the brothers Muhammad Asghar and Muhammad Masood were cleaning a well in village Dupsandoha, some 224 kilometers from Muzaffarabad.

While cleaning the well, the brothers inhaled poisonous fumes and fainted. Noticing that the brothers were incapacitated, two other people jumped into the well to rescue them. However, they did not realise that the well was full of toxic fumes and fainted as well.

Local residents rushed to the well and raised a hue and cry for help. People had to be called in from other villages to rescue the four men from the well.

They were shifted to Tehsil Headquarters Hospital Samhani where doctors pronounced the two brothers, along with a labourer, dead. Two other labourers, identified as Ali Sabir and Abrar Ahmad, were hospitalised and described to be in critical condition.

The bodies of two brothers were handed over to their heirs after completing legal and medical formalities. Hundreds of people attended the funeral of the two brothers who were buried in their ancestral graveyard.

People in the area demanded that the government to establish an emergency service in the district like Rescue 1122 so that such incidents can be averted in future.

“If we had the facilities of Rescue 1122 in the area, perhaps we may have saved these three lives as we were not able to retrieve them from the well in time,” said a relative of the deceased brothers while talking to the media.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 23^rd, 2016.