2 workers die due to toxic gas in flour mill tank

New Delhi: Two workers died when they entered a tank of a flour mill to clean it in Northwest Delhi’s Keshav Puram area on Tuesday night. The rescue team almost took four hours to evacuate them from the tank at the Hathi Brand atta mill which makes flour, porridge, maida and pulses.

Lack of safety equipment, negligence by the administration and poor planning to deal with any such incident cost the two lives, alleged their kin.

According to DCP (Northwest) Vijayanta Arya, on Tuesday at around 9:42 a PCR call was received regarding two unconscious persons at a flour mill. The duo, identified as Bebal Khan (35) and Mobin Khan (30), natives of Jaipur in Rajasthan, were admitted to Mahavir hospital where they were declared brought dead. Subsequently, a case has been registered and owner Paras and supervisor Anoop have been arrested.

A post-mortem of the bodies has been conducted and the doctors have stated asphyxia as the reason behind the death. Further investigation is underway to ascertain the quality of gas.

According to the information, Mobin went inside the tank which was closed for past couple of months.When he came down he started coughing and could not breathe and cried for help.

Hearing him, Bebal immediately rushed inside the tank to take him out but found Mobin lying unconscious. After some time he also fainted.

Abib Khan (48), elder brother of Bebal, alleged that “no safety equipment was provided to both of them. It took almost two hours to get the first body out of the tank and another two hours to take out the other body. ”