Four involved in retention wall work buried alive in Coonoor

A Karthikeyan (26), S. Arumugam (48), his son A Prathap (18), R Kanagaraj (22) and V Janagan (21) were digging the pit for the pillar when two consecutive landslips buried them. Fellow workers rushed to their rescue and managed to pull out Janagan, who was badly injured. He was rushed to the Coonoor Government Hospital and was given intensive care. 

Fire and Rescue Services personnel from Coonoor and the Nilgiris District Police who rushed to the spot faced difficulty in rescuing the four others, as an earthmover could not be taken there for the rescue operation. They started digging manually and could manage to retrieve their bodies as they were buried a few hours ago. 

According to the police, preliminary inquiry revealed that the property in which they were at work belonged to Kiran Anil Shah and is located about 10 km from the Coonoor town. As it is a very steep part, the landlord engaged more than 20 labourers from Harur Taluk, Dharmapuri district, for laying the approach road. 

To avoid landslides and damage to the road the workers were engaged in constructing the retention wall. While a portion of the digging and retention wall construction was completed, labourers resumed work on Thursday. They dug an 18-feet-deep pit from the road for the wall and about eight feet more for erecting pillars for the retention wall. 

District Collector P Shankar and Superintendent of Police (SP) Murali Rambha supervised the rescue operation. The team first retrieved the body of Karthikeyan around 1 pm, followed by Arumugam and Prathap. Kanagaraj’s body was retrieved around 4.30 pm. Their bodies were taken to Coonoor Government Hospital for autopsy.

Superintendent of Police (SP) of The Nilgiris said that a case was registered against 13 persons including the owner of the property, engineer, contractor, sub-contractors and supervisors who engaged labourers for construction of the retention wall for the approach road of a private property near Mel Currency near Coonoor. Six of them were arrested and remanded in jail under judicial custody.

“They have been booked under sections 304(A) (causing death by negligence) and 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) of the Indian Penal Code for failing to ensure safety of the labourers. Six of them have been arrested and remanded. The rest will also not be spared. Stringent action has been taken to ensure that such incident don’t happen again,” Superintendent of Police (SP) Murali Rambha said. 

District Collector P Shankar told DTNext that the contractor who engaged the labourers was from The Nilgiris, while the labourers were from Dharmapuri. 

“The contractor knows the terrain and landscape. Hill soil is loose and there is chance for landslides. Last week Coonoor witnessed 106 mm rainfall in a day. They should have taken precautionary measures to ensure safety of their labourers,” he said. “Had they given a little slop the incident could have been averted,” Shankar said.