3 female labourers among 4 dead in wall collapse in Madhya Pradesh

In yet another incident involving the casualties of poor labourers at the workplace, four workers including three women were crushed to death after the wall of the mill they were working in collapsed in Madhya Pradesh's Shivpuri district on Saturday.

Shivpuri (MP): Four labourers including three women were crushed to death after a wall of a groundnut oil mill collapsed in Madhya Pradesh's Shivpuri district on Saturday. The incident took place in Karaira police station area of the district.

As per the inputs received, the second-floor wall of the two-storey mill came crashing down on several labourers killing at least four of them and injuring many others. The mill located near Shivpura village on the Karaira-Jhansi four-lane highway belongs to one Dashrath Sahu. The labourers were collecting groundnut seeds when the incident took place.

The deceased were identified as Sonam (30), wife of Mahesh Kewat resident of Chinnod; Archana (30) wife of Govardhan Parihar of Shivpura; Rajkumari (35) wife of Mayaram Sahu of Shivpura; and Sanju (32) son of Balkishan Lodhi of Himmatpur Pichor.

Soon after the accident, the police reached the spot and recovered the bodies buried in the debris and sent them for post-mortem. Amid the rescue operation, police began a parallel investigation into the matter as well. Madhya Pradesh government expressed condolences to the families of the deceased and assured all possible help to the injured.

This is the second such wall-collapse incident in recent times in Madhya Pradesh. On January 18, two labourers were killed and another one injured after a newly-built retaining wall built around a stone-crushing facility collapsed at a village in Jabalpur district. The incident occurred at Manegaon village under Bargi police station limits. In another such incident of a wall collapse, four labourers were killed in the state's Dhar district in September last year.

Labourer casualties at work continue to be one of the unmitigated tragedies in India's urban and business landscape. Data made public by the central labour ministry reveals that at least 6,500 employees have died on duty at factories, ports, mines and construction sites between 2016 and 2020. Of the total deaths, 5,629, or over 80%, were reported in factory settings, while 549 deaths were reported from mines, 74 at ports and 237 died in central government jurisdiction (central sphere) construction sites.

A recent report by IndiaSpend says that at least 3 workers die every day in Indian factories. "The largely informal economy and underreporting of incidents even in the formal economy mean these figures are underestimates," the report said quoting experts.