OTHER BANGLADESH NEWSPAPER NEWS
165 workers killed in workplace accidents in last six months
One hundred and sixty five workers were killed in 133 workplace accidents across the country in the last six months (January - June, 2011) compared to 185 workers who died in 2010 in 138 workplace accidents during the same period.
Safety and Rights Society, an NGO working for ensuring safety and rights of workers on Friday released the report in the city after monitoring 26 daily newspapers (15 national and 11 local newspapers) during the period.
The numbers of workers who suffered non-fatal injuries in the incidents were not counted in the report.
Among them the highest number of workers (97) was killed in construction sites.
This was followed by factories and other manufacturing entities with 29 deaths, service organisations like hotel, workshop, power supply organisations with 19 deaths.
Of the total workers who died, 57 were electrocuted, 27 died after falling from high places like rooftops, 12 workers died from suffocation in septic tanks and eight were burnt to death.
Sixtyone more workers died in other situations including boiler, chemical or gas explosions; earth, rooftop or wall collapse; hit or crushed by hard or heavy objects and entangled with machines.
Sekender Ali Mina, programme director of Safety and Rights, said the number of deaths set out in the report is likely be a severe underestimation of the total number of deaths, since many deaths are not reported in the newspapers.
Though many of the injured workers succumb to their injuries later following the accidents, in many cases follow-up reports are not published in the newspapers, he added.
The organisation observed that most of the electrocutions occurred when the construction workers work with iron rods nearby high voltage live electric lines passing near the under-construction buildings.
It also observed that the workers fall victims of electrocution, as they do not take safety measures like wearing helmet, gloves, shoes etc during the work.
The main reasons why workers fell from high places include poorly made scaffolds (macha) and not using safety belt or harness.
Safety and Rights has suggested for proper implementation of Bangladesh National Building Code (BNBC), 2006 through establishing the Code Enforcement Authority according to its Section 2.
1 of Chapter-2.
It also suggested proper monitoring of regulatory bodies including RAJUK, factory inspectorate to enforce relevant laws, separate health and safety policy for respective organizations, safety plan before starting construction work, providing workers with proper PPE (Personal protective equipment) free of cost, health and safety training and right technology for the right person.
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