Stone quarries-death traps for workers

Stone quarries in Sylhet have become virtual death traps with each day passing the number of dead is rising.
Apathy among the owners of stone quarries and negligence of the administration in ensuring safety and security of workers, unplanned excavation of stones and forced work during rain are to blame for such tragic deaths.
The New Year 2018 started with the deaths of five workers in a landslide on Tuesday as they were working to extract stones from a pit in Jaflong of Gowainghat upazila.      The last year witnessed deaths of at least 40 workers. Several hundred workers were also injured in landslides while working in stone quarries extracting stones in three upazilas in Sylhet, according to locals and police sources.
In 2016, at least 20 labourers working in those pits were killed in landslides.
Several probe bodies were formed following those incidents but no effective step was taken to stop such tragic deaths in the quarries.
Over five thousand workers are engaged in stone extraction in those quarries while around twenty thousand people are directly or indirectly involved in this sector, said a stone trader seeking anonymity.
"The stone extraction work is important for the development of the country as these extracted stones from Sylhet are supplied across the country for all kinds of construction works," he said.
A Union Parishad Chairman in Sylhet told The Daily Observer: "As the owners of stone quarries are not sincere about safety and security of workers, the fatal incidents continue to take place."
The public representative requested not to be named in the paper stating that politically powerful persons are involved in the stone business and they are also traders and owners of pits.
"Workers are working in pits about 30 to 40 feet below the normal level. The sides of the quarries are very steep. Water seeping through them or sometimes excessive rain cause landslides resulting in the deaths of workers," he said.
As the death incidents occur suddenly and sporadically, the owners of stone quarries do not pay attention to the safety of the workers, the public representative said.  
About compensation, the union parishad chairman said: "I didn't hear that any family of the victims was ever given any compensation. In some cases, victims' families can file cases while in many cases they fail to do it as the owners of the quarries are very powerful."
A worker working at Jaflong area for more than five years told The Daily Observer: "Even I have to work while raining, which is life-threatening.  If I decline to work during rain, the owner of the stone pit will kick me out of the work and my family of five members has to starve," he said.
The weather of Sylhet is unlike the weather of other places of the country as rain falls in Sylhet even during dry season.
Sylhet Police Super Md Maniruzzaman told The Daily Observer: "The stone quarry accidents take place when manual means are not used in extracting stones."
When death incidents take place in the stone pits, murder cases are filed under section 302 of the Penal Code, he said, claiming that the police take action when occurrence takes place.
It is learnt that over two thousands locally made excavators named 'boma machines' have been in operations to excavate stones from quarries in Sylhet district.
The use of the machine was banned by the High Court. However, authorities could not restrain the businessmen from using the 'boma machines' as from local leaders to the high command of the ruling party are directly involved in those pits, locals complained.