Bahawalpur deaths: Toxic gases kill sewage cleaner, 3 others

Witnesses said the man was cleaning out sewers in the Chowk Chacha neighbourhood when he fainted.

AHMED PUR EAST: Four people died of exposure to toxic gases while cleaning a sewer near Ahmedpur East, a small town in Bahawalpur district on Sunday. According to witnesses, a man named Shahoo was cleaning out sewers in the Chowk Chacha neighbourhood when he fainted due to the poisonous gases in the sewer. One of the men who lives in the neighbourhood, Muhammad Boota, and Shahoo’s two sons Sajid, 25, and Majid, 18, went into the sewer in order to rescue the man but succumbed to the gases themselves. Local rescue services later recovered all four bodies and moved them to the morgue of a local hospital.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 13^th, 2011.