Cleaning your s***: The story and tragedy of people who clean sewers

In Delhi, ten sanitation workers have died in little over a month.

Ten sewer workers have in Delhi have died in little over a month owing to exposure to toxic gases in sewers they were cleaning.

Sanitation workers in India very often do not have access to protective gear, exposing them to danger and death. (Ravi Choudhary/HT Photo)

On August 7 this year, three men died of asphyxiation, one after the another, while cleaning a sewer manhole in Lajpat Nagar. The workers suffocated to death after being exposed to poisonous gases. On August 21, Delhi recorded its tenth death of a sanitation workers in a little over a month, after he entered a clogged sewer at Lok Nayak Hospital in Delhi without protective gear.

Death of workers in sewers is not new. Mumbai and Bangalore have also reported such cases. A look at the daily dangers that sanitation workers negotiate