A road construction machine hit an overhead high tension power line in Chapoli village in the Rajasthan’s Jhunjhunu district Monday and killed eight labourers and injured five of them.
Around 10 am police say, the workers in the labour gangs were transporting a cement mixer machine to another site. In the course of the operation, the machine’s hydraulic jack triggered a live overhead power line which electrocuted the workers pushing the machine.
Villagers had started working on the building of the road from the village to Kadam Kund temple since the condition of the existing road was below par, Jhunjhunu Collector Arun Garg said. The proposed road, however, was to be built through a forest area and the villagers had not come by the necessary permission to undertake the work.
Forest guards were tied up in panchayat work and the villagers had organised financial support and were working on the construction, Garg said. It is then that the accident happened and the cement mixer got in contact with the live wire.
All four who met their ends were identified as Hariram Gurjar (30), Mangalchand Gurjar (22), Kaluram Gurjar (29) and Pawan Gurjar (23) from Haleda Mandawara village. The four other victims were Vishnu Saini (38), Surendra alias Suresh Saini (30), Mukesh Saini (27) and Fatehchand Saini (32), of Chapoli. Vishnu was also the contractor in charge of the work.
One of the injured workers Gidaram Saini is quoted in the media as saying that the workers were transferring the machine when it came into contact with the power line, causing the accident.
After the tragedy took place, the villagers protested and called for compensation to be paid to the members of the victim families. Shri. Rajendra Gudha, who has served as a Minister at the Ministry of Child Health and Development, Government of Karnataka, stated that the deceased came from weaker economic families, and counteracted the demand of each family to get Rs 20 lakh to Rs 25 lakh as compensation.
The incident has come as a concern to many on safety measures when working on buildings close to a high-tension power line.