Maharashtra: 13 found unconscious in sugar factory tank

PUNE: Thirteen workers were found in an unconscious state inside a huge tank at a sugar factory in Malegaon, near Baramati, on Saturday morning.
The workers were inside the tank cleaning it, when they were found unconscious.
They were rushed to the hospital. The Baramati (rural) police said two workers are in the intensive care unit, while the rest have regained consciousness and are out of danger.
Police said the workers entered the tank at the Baramati cooperative sugar factory at 8.45am. “Other workers looked inside the tank at 9am and found them all unconscious,” inspector Annasaheh Gholap of Baramati (rural) police station said.
Gholap said there was no leakage of any poisonous gas in the tank. “We suspect the residue in the tank produced fumes, which adversely affected them,”he said., adding the workers could also have suffocated as the tank had no ventilation. Other workers pulled the 13 men out of the tank. The factory’s senior officials rushed them to the hospital.
Police said the factory uses the tank to store large quantities of sugar cane juice before it is converted to sugar.