DHANBAD: Four contract labourers died and two others suffered minor injuries when an underpass that they were constructing at Chhatakulhi village close to Pradhankhanta station under Dhanbad rail division of East Central Railway caved in on Tuesday night.
The deceased were identified as Niranjan Mahto (51), Saurabh Dheevar (19), Pappu Mahto (45) and Vikram Mahto (27). All of them were residents of Chhatakulhi. Their bodies were pulled out of the debris by the villagers around 10:30pm on Tuesday and sent to SNMMCH, Dhanbad for a post-mortem.
According to the locals, around 9pm a goods train passed through the section when the men were working 10ft under the ground, which caused vibration in the unstable land strata and as a result, a huge chunk of the soil caved in and the six labourers got buried. While two of them were pulled out by the villagers, the four others were crushed to death.
Train services hit for 7 hrs as locals demand compensation
The villagers alleged that despite reporting the matter immediately, no senior rail official reached the spot till midnight. They claimed that had the rescue operation began early, some of the workers could have been saved.
The villagers even demanded to know how a goods train was allowed to pass through the section and that too in full speed when construction work was underway.
They also demanded to know why no safety equipment was provided to the workers.
When asked, senior divisional commercial manager A K Pandey said, "The underpass was being constructed under the box-pushing method and the speed limit for the section was also there in place. We will conduct a detailed inquiry to ascertain what went wrong."
The inquiry committee was yet to be constituted till the time of filing this report.
Train services on the Dhanbad-Howrah section were disrupted for nearly seven hours after villagers blocked the tracks from Tuesday night, demanding compensation for the deceased's families.
The railways had to cancel six trains, including the Dhanbad-Tatanagar Swarnrekha Express, and divert nearly a dozen trains to other routes.
The service resumed around 5:22am after the railway contractor agreed to pay a compensation of Rs 20 lakh each to the relatives of the deceased and the railways agreed to pay Rs 50,000 each for the last rites, besides promising contractual jobs to the eligible family members under any contractor.
On the other hand, train services on the Dhanbad-Sindri section of the division resumed after nearly 16 hours.
Services of various trains originating from Ranchi railway division were also affected due to the blockade.
"The Ranchi-Dumka intercity express and the Burdwan-Hatia Memu passenger were diverted through Asansol and Adra stations on Wednesday, while the Bhagalpur-Ranchi Express will leave Bhagalpur station three hours behind its schedule," the Ranchi railway division said in a statement.
(With inputs from Ranchi)
