Five workers die of suffocation in factory tank

Karachi  

Five workers died of suffocation at a factory in Korangi Industrial Area on Sunday.

Police said Irfan Sharif, 25, Miraj, 28, Raheem, 24, his brother Shakeel, 20, and Irbaz, 23, died of suffocation in a chemical tank at the Maxen Plastic Factory in Sector 24 of Korangi Industrial Area while they were cleaning it. Another worker, Fayyaz, is under treatment at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre.

Other workers and the owner tried to save them, and then a rescue team was called to the scene.

The six workers were taken to the JPMC, where five of them died. A medic-legal officer at the JPMC said the workers had died of suffocation.

The Korangi Industrial Area SHO said that tank was around 20 feet deep and filled with eight feet of water.

The dead workers’ families rushed to the JPMC and staged a protest against the factory owner.

Police told The News that there were around 15 illegal plastic factories in the Korangi Industrial Area and they had informed the higher authorities several times about them, but they had not responded.

The Korangi Industrial Area police registered a case on the complaint of Abdul Kalam against the factory owner, Wasi, and supervisor, Ehsan.

On December 4, 2015 at a pickle factory in Darul Islam Society, Korangi, the owner and seven workers too had died of suffocation when they fell in a chemical tank there.

On November 20, 2015, three workers of an oil company in Bin Qasim had died of suffocation while they were cleaning a tank.

Expressing sorrow over the death of the five workers, labour rights activists urged the government to immediately conduct safety inspection of all factories.

Karamat Ali, the director of the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (Piler), said murder cases should be registered against the factory owners whose negligence caused the death of workers.

“Machines are now available for cleaning chemical tanks and gutters because they poisonous gases, but to save money, factory owners use their workers for this purpose,” Ali told The News. “It’s criminal negligence.”

He demanded that the government should ensure an efficient labour inspection mechanism to address the problem of poor occupational health and safety conditions in the industrial sector.

Piler’s annual report, “Status of Labour Rights in Pakistan in 2015”, states that in Pakistan the situation of occupational health and safety was fast deteriorating. The country’s occupational safety and health score had slid down further in 2015.

“Occupational accidents are grossly under-reported due to informality, non-compliance, lack of labour inspection and a general reluctance for documentation and the media tends to report only fatal or serious accidents,” Piler stated in the report. Pakistan did not ratify any of the ILO conventions relating to occupational health and safety of workers in 2015 despite increasing awareness of the urgent need for provision of safety to workers following the status of the GSP Plus granted to Pakistan.

There are three general ILO Conventions on occupational health and safety (C-155, C-161, C-187) and five conventions specific to industries - commerce and offices, dock work, mines, construction and agriculture.

 

CM seeks report

Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah has directed the labour secretary to submit a report on the death of the five workers within three days with along with the recommended action against the factory management. The chief minister also told the secretary to find out why the five men were working on Sunday.