Two Workers Die Of Suffocation While Cleaning Septic Tank In Chennai, Case Registered Against Employer

Two workers who were cleaning a septic tank in a gated community on June 29 in the Perungudi region of Chennai died from asphyxiation by inhaling poisonous gases. The workers were identified as D Dhatchanamoorthy and P Periyasamy, both aged 38 and hailing from Pallikaranai.

The incident has put the death toll of manual scavengers to 4 in one day in Chennai, as reported by India Today.

Victims Were Employed For The Last Five Years

Both Periyasamy and Dhatchanamoorthy, employees of a cleaning company in the Thoraipakkam area, were regularly given the jobs of cleaning the septic tank for the last five years at the gamed community in Kamaraj Nagar, Perungudi.

According to the police, they used to empty the tanks using trucks and then climb inside to clean them, as reported by The New Indian Express.

The police added that they had started cleaning the septic tanks attached to each building by 1 pm on Wednesday and added that "by 6.30 pm opened another tank. They had decided to call it a day after cleaning that tank."

Periyasamy had opened the tank, which was 20 feet deep and fainted when he entered it. Dhatchanamoorthy had not noticed him fainting, and he fainted too when he entered the tank.

The private cleaning company's supervisor, Saravanan, informed the manager and secretary of the gated community, who in turn called the fire rescue personnel. The personnel arrived and rescued the bodies of Periyasamy and Dhatchanamoorthy. They were taken to the hospital, but Periyasamy succumbed in the ambulance, and Dhatchanamoorthy passed away at 8:30 pm.

Cases Registered Against Employer

The incident brought to light again how neglected and at-risk manual scavengers are. The Thoraipakkam police arrested S Saravanan, the supervisor of the cleaning company, and S Krishnan, the secretary of the gated community, and registered a case under IPC sections 304A, pertaining to death due to negligence, 336, pertaining to negligence endangering human life, and additionally, the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013.

Photos from the incident scene also showed that they weren't wearing any protective gear either. This brings the total to 4 men who have died while manual scavenging in the last 24 hours in Chennai.

Manual Scavenging In India

Manual scavenging has already taken too many lives due to no regulations, no guidelines, and no resources or protective gear provided to the people who have to do it. Usually, people from lower castes get the job of cleaning underground tanks, and no protection is provided to them either, with almost 161 deaths due to "accidents while cleaning septic tanks" in three years according to government data, though the actual number might be much higher, and the majority of them, almost 27, from Tamil Nadu, as reported by Hindustan Times.

The Centre told the Lok Sabha in December 2021 that 321 people have died by cleaning sewers in the last five years, and over 58,000 manual scavengers were identified in India at the time, as reported by Scroll.

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