4 men choke to death inside septic tank in DDU Nagar

VARANASI: Four persons, including three sanitary staff, choked to death inside a septic tank in Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay Nagar (formerly Mughalsarai) of UP’s Chandauli district on Thursday.

The state government has announced financial assistance of Rs 4 lakh each for the victims' families while Rs 10,000 were released as immediate assistance for cremation.

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath has condoled the deaths and directed officials in Chandauli district to extend all help to the families.

Police said Bharat Jaiswal, a resident of New Mahal in DDU Nagar, had engaged three sanitary workers — Vinod Rawat (35), Kundan (40) and Loha (23) — to clean the septic tank installed at his house.

The workers started work around 2am on Thursday. They entered the tank but soon fell unconscious due to the presence of poisonous gas in the tank. Bharat Jaiswal’s son Ankur (23) then entered the tank to save the workers but he too fell unconscious.

Jaiswal along with help of neighbours took out the four men and rushed them to a local hospital where two sanitary workers were declared brought dead, while two others, including Ankur, died during the treatment, said police. The bodies were later sent for postmortem examination.

DM Chandauli Nikhil T Funde and SP Anil Kumar met the families of the victims on Thursday and assured all help. The officials said financial assistance sanctioned from the natural calamity fund would be transferred to the account of the family of each deceased by Friday.

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