18-year-old worker killed, two injured as hillock collapses at NH66 site in Kasaragod
According to officials, 15-20 workers were at the site when the hillock gave way around 10.30 am.
According to officials, 15-20 workers were at the site when the hillock gave way around 10.30 am.
According to officials, 15-20 workers were at the site when the hillock gave way around 10.30 am.
Kasaragod: An 18-year-old worker was killed and two others were injured when a section of a hillock collapsed during the construction of a retaining wall for NH66 at Mattalayi, near Cheruvathur, on Monday.
The site is part of the 600-km, six-lane highway being built through Kerala from Talapady in the north to Karode in the south, and falls on the Nileshwar-Taliparamba stretch being developed by Hyderabad-based Megha Engineering & Infrastructures Ltd (MEIL).
Company officials identified the deceased as Mumtaj Mir (18) from West Bengal. The injured -- Mohan Thejar, also 18, and Munlal Laskar (55) -- are from the same state.
"They were fixing shuttering plates to build the retaining wall when the base (of the hillock) gave way," said a site engineer with MEIL. The collapse occurred around 10.30 am.
"Mohan and Munlal were buried only from their waist down and were pulled out quickly,” the engineer said. They suffered leg fractures.
Mumtaj, however, was completely buried. "It took around 30 minutes to pull him out," he said. Doctors suspect that he may have suffocated or knocked out after being struck by earth or rock. His body was shifted to the Government Medical College, Pariyaram, for autopsy. "We can confirm the cause of death only after receiving the postmortem report," a government official said.
District Collector Inbasekar K is scheduled to visit the site at 3.30 pm. Meanwhile, the Chandera police have launched an investigation.
Officials said around 15 to 20 workers were present at the site when the collapse occurred. Alerted by the workers, residents, along with police and Fire and Rescue Services, joined the effort to clear the debris. MEIL's earthmoving equipment was also deployed.
Cheruvathur panchayat member Rajandran Payyadakkath blamed the tragedy on poor engineering. "The Mattalayi hillock and the Veeramala hill, 2 km north along the same stretch, were both sliced vertically and sprayed with cement paste to hold them in place. But during rains, the slopes would frequently give way and block the road," he said. The collector had inspected the site earlier, following repeated complaints. "This was a disaster waiting to happen," he said.
Though vertically slicing hills increases the risk of collapse -- as seen in Shirur last July -- Chandera police station house officer Prasanth K said Monday’s collapse occurred at the base, where workers had dug to lay the foundation for a retaining wall. To reduce pressure on the hill but at the same time extract more earth, MEIL had sliced the hill vertically at two levels.
The upper tier, which is a towering wall of earth, had been sprayed with cement. It was the lower tier -- closer to the road and much shorter in height -- that gave way and buried the workers. "Even the shorter section couldn't withstand the load. Vertical slicing of hills is clearly unscientific," said Rajandran Payyadakkath, the panchayat member.
While there was drizzle on Sunday, residents said it was unlikely to have triggered the collapse.
In October 2022, 13 workers had a narrow escape when an underpass under construction at Periya, 28 km north, caved in. That project too was executed by MEIL. Experts from the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Karnataka, later concluded that the staging pipes used could not withstand the weight of wet concrete.