Five workers hailing from West Bengal and Jharkhand working at a construction site died after falling from the 10th floor of an under-construction State government’s double bedroom housing project at Rampally village in Keesara mandal, about 35 km from here on Thursday. Another labourer suffered severe injuries.
The victims — Sibel Roy (33), Saiful Haq (27), Abhijit Roy (18) and Milan Sheik (20) from West Bengal, and Yash Kumar (20) from Jharkhand — were removing metal supporters placed on the side wall, when the incident occurred, Keesara police said.
The injured, who is battling for life at a corporate hospital in Secunderabad was identified as Biplav Roy (26), from Jalpaiguri in West Bengal.
Eyewitnesses said the incident took place around 11.30 a.m. after the iron platform on which they were standing came off. They were removing the side metal supporter with the help of a crane on the 12th tower. The workers were not wearing any safety gears.
The victims had arrived in the city with a group of labourers from different parts of West Bengal and Jharkhand a few years ago.
Shocked, most of their friends and co-workers refused to speak. “We heard a loud noise and looked down. The metal platform had fallen on some of our co-workers” said Fakhrullah Mia, another migrant labourer from West Bengal, who extracted the bodies from the platform.
The co-workers shifted the victims to a nearby private hospital in a pick-up van, which was used for supplying of construction material.
Case registered
“A case had been registered and we are investigating whether they were taking any safety measures and the exact reason for the accident,” said inspector B Prakash. He said all the six workers fell along with the platform. They suffered multiple fractures and head injuries, as a result, death was instant for them, the officer said.
“Three of them died on the spot and two others succumbed while being shifted to the hospital,” police said.
K Dharma Reddy, a deputy executive engineer with GHMC, who is supervising the mega-project, where 6240 double bedroom houses are being constructed for the poor, said that a crane that was lifting the iron sheet lost balance and had a jerk, which caused imbalance and the workers fell.
The DEC Infrastructure and Projects (India) Pvt. Ltd is executing the project comprising 52 towers, with 120 flats in each. Over 1,600 workers are working round-the-clock to complete the construction by July this year. Mr. Reddy said that ex gratia of ₹15 lakh, including ₹ 2 lakh from GHMC and ₹ 8 lakh insurance from the construction company will be sanctioned to the kin of each victim.
Their bodies were shifted to Gandhi hospital morgue for autopsy and preservation.