Two men die while trying to save one from a choked sewer

Muzaffar Janwari went down the sewer, a school teacher and his two sons followed.

HYDERABAD:

Two men who attempted to save the life of a plumber stuck in a choked sewerage pipeline died after inhaling toxic fumes.

The plumber, Muzaffar Janwari, went down into the 10-foot-deep sewer, in Tando Ghafoor Shah Jahania area of Qasimabad, and fainted, said a shop owner, Zulfiqar, who witnessed the whole incident. A retired school teacher, Dhani Bukhsh Memon, tried to save Janwari but he also collapsed inside the sewer.

Memon’s two sons, Zaheer Abbas and Qamar Abbas, followed their father but they fainted as well. Qamar, however, was hauled up by the bystanders. But the others could not survive. “It took nearly two hours to pull out all the bodies after a crane dug up the road,” said Zulfiqar.

Janwari, Memon and Zaheer were pronounced dead when the bodies were taken to Civil hospital. Qamar was also taken there and is out of danger, said the chief medico-legal officer, Dr Anwar Arain.

The deputy commissioner of Hyderabad, Asif Memon, and SSP Syed Asad Raza Shah reached the site before the bodies were lifted out of the sewer and assured the angry crowd that a case will be registered against the Water And Sanitation Agency (Wasa) Hyderabad if the bereaved family requested it.

However, the Wasa officials denied that the agency’s negligence was responsible for the loss of lives. “It was irresponsible on their [the victims’] part,” said Saleemuddin Qureshi, the managing director. “They should have sought the agency’s help to fix the problem.”

Qureshi also refuted the charge that the manhole was uncovered. He said that the fumes which caused the men to faint could not have accumulated had it been open.  Meanwhile, the commissioner, Ahmed Baksh Narejo, set up an inquiry committee, led by the assistant commissioner, to probe the cause of the accident.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 10^th, 2012.