One dies, two hurt as water tank wall collapses on them

Mangalore, February 6: One person was killed and two others sustained serious injuries when the wall of a ground level water tank inside the workers' colony at Kalavaru near Bajpe, collapsed on them on Friday night.

They were engaged by a contractor to work at the Rs 12,000 crore MRPL Phase III project site at Kalavaru. The third phase of the project envisages increased capacity of crude throughput from 11.89 million metric tonnes annually (mmtpa) to 15 mmtpa.

The deceased was Bhagat Singh (25) from Khetri Nagar of Jhunjhunu district, Rajasthan. The injured were Rakesh Meena (22) and Ravi Naik (21) also from the same town. All are painters by profession. While Meena suffered fractures, Naik injured his eye.

On Saturday, the 1000-odd workers in the colony held a strike though it meant losing a day's wages, as they demanded to the authorities that they be taken to the mortuary.

Following the incident on Friday night, there was tension when the ambulance came to take the body to the hospital for post-mortem. The enraged workers surrounded the police demanding that somebody from their side be allowed to go with the body, for which the police denied permission. Finally the police had to resort to caning to disperse the agitated mob.

Abdul, a fitter from Gorakhpur said that the police had caned them when they wanted to send Singh's colleague with the body. "We did not demand anything. How can we? He will get what he is entitled to," he said, when asked whether they had demanded lakhs of rupees as compensation.

Dr Sanath Bhandary, plastic surgeon, AJ Hospital, said Naik had suffered a deep laceration of the right eyelid and his cornea was exposed. "He has been operated upon and is recovering. Naik will have to stay in the hospital for a week and will need another two weeks of rest," he added.

Surathkal police have registered cases against the labour contractor and the company under IPC Sections 337 (causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others), 304 A (causing death by negligence) read with 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention).