Poisonous gas kills 4 coal miners in Harnai Balochistan
Hanif Tareen :
HARNAI: Poisonous gas has killed 4 coal miners in Balochistan’s Harnai district on Wednesday afternoon. The poisonous gas has left one coal miner unconscious inside the mine.
Sohail Anwar Hashmi, the Deputy Commissioner Harnai said the coal miners were working deep inside a mine in Harani when the incident happened. “Levies retrieved all 4 dead bodies from the mine”, Mr. Hashmi said.
However, the survived coal miner shifted to Quetta for medical treatment. The miners suffocated due to a high concentration of poisonous gas, the DC mentioned.
Rescue workers reached the spot
Rescue workers reached the affected mine and retrieved the dead bodies from inside the mine. The victims belonged to the Swat area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The administration would dispatch the dead bodies to their home towns today, Mr. Hashmi added.
In Balochistan, hazardous working conditions have claimed scores of precious human lives during the last few years. Thousands of poverty-hit laborers from Swat, Shangla, and other parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, some parts of volatile southern Afghanistan have been working coal mines of Balochistan for a long time.
Death holes, not mines
“These coal mines are death holes”, Sultan Muhammad Khan, the central leader of Pakistan labor federation said. He said the nexus between the rulers and contractors has resulted in increasing deaths of coal miners in Balochistan.
Ethnic Shia Hazaraz working in Mach coal mines
Poor ethnic Shia Hazara coal miners have been extracting coal from mines in Balochistan’s Mach area. On January 3rd, this year, the armed accused kidnapped and brutally murdered 11 coal miners belonging to the Shia Hazara community. Since then, scores of coal miners belonging to the Hazara community have left their jobs because of threats to the lives in Mach and surrounding areas.
Poisonous gas kills 4 coal miners in Harnai Balochistan
