3 buried alive in mudslide at Sirpur Paper Mill

Hyderabad: Three labourers died and five others were injured when a mound of earth fell on them while they were constructing pillars at a construction site on the premises of

Sirpur Paper Mill

in Kumram Bheem-Asifabad district on Saturday night.

The incident happened at around 11pm on Saturday when 12 labourers were constructing the pillars for a boiler at the unit, police said.

The deceased have been identified as 38-year-old Raghunath Ram and 25-year-old C Bahniya from Jharkhand and 30-year-old Ranjith from Lucknow. The injured persons have been identified as M Rani Das, Santosh Ram, Parikhan Ram, Ram Praneeth and Sanjay Ram.

The injured were shifted to a hospital in Mancherial for treatment.

After being alerted by other construction workers present at the mishap spot, the police rushed to the spot and began rescue operations with the help of an earth mover. It took more than three hours to recover the bodies of the deceased, which were buried under the mud.

“A boiler was being constructed at the site and for that purpose pits that were around 15 feet deep and quite wide were made. The workers were erecting the pillars when the mud fell on them,” said officials from the fire department.

Police said that a company had given the project to a civil contractor and a case was registered under Section 304 a (negligence causing death) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).