Workplace Accident
213 killed in seven months
Highest number of deaths in construction sector
Some 213 workers died in 160 workplace incidents across the country in the last seven months from January to July this year, says a rights body’s report prepared based on the reports published in the newspapers.
Safety and Rights Society, an NGO working for ensuring safety and rights of workers, yesterday revealed the report after monitoring 16 newspapers during the period.
Of the total victims, the highest number of workers (85) was killed in construction sector, followed by manufacturing (64) and service sector (39), said a press release of the NGO.
The report says that of the total victim workers, 55 were electrocuted while 35 were burnt to death, 31 died after falling from high places like scaffolds, 19 transport workers, including drivers, killed in road accidents and 17 workers were killed by suffocation from poisonous gas.
Other reasons for the workplace deaths include boiler, chemical or gas explosions, earth, roof and wall collapsed, hit by hard objects and entangled with machines, it says.
The report says most of the electrocutions occurred when iron rods carried by construction workers came into contact with live electric lines passing near the under-construction buildings.
The orginisation observes that the workers fall victims of electrocution, as they do not take safety measures wearing helmet, gloves, shoes etc during the work. The main reason why workers fell from high places was due to poorly made scaffolds (macha), it says.
Lack of proper implementation of law, hazardous and aged-old installations, ineffective machinery and inadequate personal protective equipments (PPE) at workplaces were the key factors behind the occupational accidents, said Sekender Ali Mina, programme director of Safety and Rights, adding that most of the workplace accidents could have been prevented by proper safety measures.
The number of deaths set out in the report is likely be a severe underestimation of the total number of deaths–since many deaths are not reported in the newspapers, he said.
In the month of July, a total of 28 workers–19 from construction sector, six from manufacturing and three from service sector–were killed in separate workplace accidents.
