Two workers die in pharma cluster in Vizag

They are said to have inhaled toxic gas

Two workers aged around 25 died under mysterious circumstances after reportedly inhaling some poisonous gas near the pump house of the effluent treatment plant at Ramky Pharmacity in Jawaharlal Nehru Pharma City (JNPC), Parawada, here, in the early hours of Monday.

The deceased were identified as Manikanta and Durga Prasad, both contract workers.

According to managing director and CEO of Ramky Pharmacity P.P. Lal Krishna, the pharma city had one common effluent treatment plant for around 100 companies housed in the facility. Effluents from most of the companies flow into the treatment plant through pipelines using gravitational technology. A pump is used to draw the effluents into the tank for the firms, said Mr. Krishna.

On Monday, the two workers went to check the working of the pumping process. While one was at the pump, his colleague, who had gone to check the levels of the tank, fell unconscious near the manhole of the tank. Seeing this, the other worker rushed to his rescue and he too fell unconscious, Mr. Krishna said. They were shifted to a hospital, but were declared brought dead.

According to the police, the watchman present at the site informed the management, and the officials immediately rushed to the spot and sent the unconscious workers to a private hospital in Gajuwaka. But on the advise of the hospital, they were shifted to a corporate hospital. Upon reaching the hospital at Sheelanagar, both workers were declared brought dead.

The police and Ramky officials are investigating the cause of death. “It is mystery even for us and we are trying to find out what they inhaled,” said Mr. Krishna.

The bodies were shifted to c(KGH) for postmortem.

A few workers associations blamed the management for negligence and for not taking adequate safety measures, which might have led to the incident.