Sleeping worker dies after being buried alive in MP’s Chhindwara

A 24-year-old worker was buried alive when construction workers failed to spot him in the dark and built over him at a dam project in Madhya Pradesh.

A 24-year-old worker was buried alive when construction workers failed to spot him in the dark and built over him at a dam project in Madhya Pradesh’s Chhindwara district, officials said on Friday.

Jai Ram was sleeping at the Pench dam project site, where work was on to close a duct, when the accident occurred early on Thursday, officials said. The gravel, which was emptied over him, was levelled by road rollers to fill up the river duct.

Jai Ram’s body was discovered by other workers when they noticed a hand below the gravel and dug around half a feet to find him lying underneath.

Chhindwara superintendent of police GK Pathak said it is unclear whether he was buried under the gravel or hit by the dumper. Pathak said the worker’s body has been sent for an autopsy and the report is yet to come.

Police are in the process of recording the statements of workers, he added.

This is second such incident in the past six months of a man being killed on a construction site where work was carried on in the dark. In September last year, a 45-year-old man was found buried at the road construction site in remote Salaiya village in Katni district.

An apparently drunk man, identified as Latori Burman, got stuck under the sand and boulders which were spread by an earth moving machine and was levelled by a road roller.