Chandigarh:After Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh requested External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to help get the bodies of four Sikh men back to Punjab, who drowned in a sewage tank in Italy, the Ministry said the Indian embassy in Italy has been alerted.
"Saddened to hear about the death of 4 Punjabi men drown in a farm manure tank near Pavia, Italy. Request @DrSJaishankar to instruct the Indian Mission in Italy to help get the mortal remains back to India," Amarinder Singh tweeted.
Jaishankar replied: "We have alerted our Embassy @IndiainItaly to extend all help."
Four Indian-origin Sikh men drowned in a sewage tank on a cattle farm in northern Italy due to the carbon dioxide fumes coming out from the cow manure, according to media reports.
The incident happened on Thursday at a cattle farm in Arena Po near Pavia, a city in south Milan, ANSA news agency reported on Thursday.
Agriculture minister Teresa Bellanova tweeted condolences and said “safety at work is an inalienable right and we must make every effort to ensure it is respected”. She was a farm labourer herself as a teenager.
Out of the deceased, two were brothers — Prem, 48, and Tarsem Singh, 45 — who were running the farm.
The other two were workers, identified as Arminder Singh, 29, and Manjinder Singh, 28.
Initial investigations reveal that the three men jumped to rescue a worker who was emptying the tank to use the manure as a fertiliser on the farm’s fields, the BBC reported.
Investigators suspect that the four died due to the carbon dioxide fumes coming from the cow manure, the report said.
The victims’ wives raised the alarm when the men failed to turn up for lunch.
They rushed to the scene and spotted one body in the sewage. The women then called in firefighters, who emptied the tank to recover all the bodies, the report said.
Italian media reported that the farm is one of the biggest in the Pavia region.
During the incident, the manure was being collected for use as fertiliser on the farm’s fields. The victims’ wives raised the alarm when the men failed to turn up for lunch on Thursday. They rushed to the scene and spotted one body in the sewage.
The wives then called in firefighters, who donned masks and emptied the tank to recover all the bodies.
Italy’s public broadcaster Rai said that the Arena Po tragedy brings the total number of deaths to 486 in work-related accidents in the country this year, highest since 2016.
Agriculture minister Teresa Bellanova tweeted condolences and said “safety at work is an inalienable right and we must make every effort to ensure it is respected”. She was a farm labourer herself as a teenager.
Mohan Singh,distant relative of the victim brothers told Indian Express, in Jalandhar that they had a farm of 500 cows and had been living their for the past two decades.