Five workers engaged by the contractor agency executing the Package-I works of Palamuru-Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Scheme (PRLIS) were killed in a mishap when the cables of crane bucket carrying the cement-concrete mix snapped and fell on those working in the work pertaining to the underground pump house near Regumangadda village of Kollapur mandal in Nagarkurnool district.
Of the deceased, three were from Jharkhand and one each were from Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. When contacted, Chief Engineer of the project M.A. Hameed Khan confirmed the incident and stated that the contract agency had shifted the injured to Hyderabad after the accident that took place in the wee hours on Friday.
Family members of the deceased alleged that at least a couple of the injured would have been saved had there been timely help to shift the injured to a hospital. They stated that there was no response from the contract agency officials for two hours.
A family member of one the deceased told The Hindu that they had been complaining about the weak cables of the crane for over a week now with a request for their replacement but their pleas went unheard resulting in the mishap in the early hours of Friday, claiming five lives.
The deceased were identified as Bholenath (35), Praveen (38) and Kamlesh (36) from Jharkhand, Sonu Kumar (36) from Bihar and D. Srinivas alias Seenu (40) of Nidadavole in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh.
The kin of the deceased demanded justice to their families as they have lost the earning members and said there were no word either from the work agency or from the government so far. A relative of Seenu, one of the deceased from A.P., said the deceased has four school going children — three daughters and a son — and their future had become bleak with the death of the lone earning member of the family.
