Three contractual workers of the Western Coalfields Limited died of suffocation while cleaning an underground sewage tank in Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district, police said on Wednesday.

Two others fell unconscious in the incident that took place on Tuesday in Sasti-Dhopatala town in Ballarpur area, Rajura police station’s inspector Chandrasekhar Bahadure said.

Around 9 am, four workers entered the 10-feet-deep tank to clean it. But, when they did not come out after a long time, some other workers alerted locals, he said.

A JCB machine was then used to remove a slab covering the tank. Later, a cleaner from Rampur gram panchayat also went down into the tank, but he too fell unconscious briefly. He and the four other workers were pulled out by locals and rushed to a hospital.

Two workers – Raju Janjarla and Subhash Khandalkar – were declared dead, the police official said.

Another worker, Sushil Korde, whose condition was serious, was shifted to a hospital in Nagpur where he also died during treatment, the official said.

Cleaner Shankar Andagula and another worker Pramod Vavhitkar were undergoing treatment in Chandrapur, he added.

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