Death toll in maize warehouse collapse in Vijayapura rises to seven

VIJAYAPURA: The death toll in the Rajaguru Foods maize warehouse collapse in Vijayapura rose to seven on Monday. The State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) pulled out four more bodies of workers trapped beneath sacks of maize and a tin sheet in a joint operation.

The deceased have been identified as Lukho Jadav (45), Ram Balak (52), Dular Chandra Mukhia (40) and Krishnakumar, all hailing from Bihar.

Following the incident, the district in-charge minister M B Patil visited the site and said he is collecting information about the incident from the Deputy Commissioner.

He said, “This is a very terrible tragedy. They came here from another state to work. Priority will be given to rescuing the trapped workers and sending them home. The entire incident will be reviewed after the police investigation. I will talk to the CM on providing compensation to the injured. The owner should give compensation to his workers. Eight workers have died so far and full information will be available after the complete operation. Workers are in deep pain. Some of the workers said that two workers died in the past, but the owner did not provide compensation for the deceased. We will investigate it, and suitable action will be taken”.

A team of 27 members of the NDRF has arrived on the spot to speed up the rescue operation.

The owner of the warehouse, Kishore Kumar Jain, has announced Rs 5 lakh each for the deceased workers’ family and Rs 2 lakh each for the injured workers.

Police said the bodies of the workers was shifted to the Vijayapura district hospital mortuary for postmortem. Following that, the bodies will be sent to Bihar’s native villages of Sonama, Sakhawa, Godo, Saradehi, Vijayalak and Batharadia. The district administration will make arrangement for transportation and the co-workers will take the bodies to their hometowns after the compensation amount is paid.