Toxic gas inhalation takes lives of two workers, injures another

Three construction workers were hospitalised on Wednesday morning after inhaling poisonous gas which was released when they opened the shutter of a septic tank at a house in Sherpur, Bogra. Sherpur Police Sub-Inspector Arif said: “The workers lost consciousness when they went inside the tank to open the shutter.” Sherpur Fire Service rescued the workers and rushed them to Sherpur health complex. According to physicians at the health complex, two of the workers, Solaiman Hossain, 55, and Anwar Hossain, 45, from Sherpur upazila had died. The third, Sohel Rana, 25, was later transferred to Bogra’s Shahid Ziaur Rahman Medical College hospital. The Sherpur Fire Service officials suspect the gases had accumulated in the tank after it was constructed a month earlier. Sirajganj Fire Service official Abdul Hamid explained: “The workers have died from inhaling either carbon monoxide or hydrogen sulphide gas which often forms inside closed septic tanks.”