Ghaziabad: Two workers died and one was injured after a heap of excavated soil collapsed on them during foundation work for a school building in Ghaziabad’s Suncity.The incident occurred around 12.30pm on Tuesday, while work was underway for Nehru World School. Bystanders and fellow workers used an earthmover and shovels to pull the men free. Two of them succumbed to their injuries at hospital; the third remains in critical condition.The school management remained unaware of the incident till Wednesday, as the contractor failed to inform them, a school spokesperson said. Police were alerted by the hospital late Tuesday night.The deceased — Suraj Chauhan, 25, and Ramji Shah, 45 — were Chhattisgarh’s Janjgir. The injured worker, Omprakash, 35, is from the state’s Basaunda Bazaar.DCP Dhawal Jaiswal said a team was dispatched to the hospital upon receiving the information. “Workers had piled up a large mound of soil from the digging. As they continued excavating, the mound suddenly gave way and buried all three men,” he said. Police have taken possession of the bodies, which have been sent for postmortem examination, and their families have been notified.A senior police officer said authorities were examining whether proper safety protocols had been followed at the site. A case was yet to be registered.In another incident, three people, including an 11-year-old girl, were injured after a portion of a two-storey building collapsed in the Ankur Vihar area on Tuesday, when excavation work on an adjacent plot destabilised the structure.The injured have been identified as Sanjay Kumar, a daily-wage labourer, his wife Chanchal, and their daughter Nisha, 11. The family had been renting a room in the building for several years.The house belongs to Ashok Kumar, a resident of Ghitora near Sharad City Colony, who had rented out six rooms in the building to approximately 25 people, most of them labourers and their families.According to a senior police officer, a vacant plot adjoining Ashok’s building was purchased around two months ago by Pritam, a Ghaziabad resident. On Tuesday afternoon, Pritam was getting the plot’s foundation excavated using a JCB machine. The digging caused the wall of the two-storey structure to give way, burying Sanjay and his family under debris.Locals pulled Sanjay and Chanchal out of the rubble first. When Sanjay told bystanders that his daughter was also trapped, a search began immediately and Nisha was retrieved within around 15 minutes. All three were taken to a private hospital and are stated to be stable.DCP (Rural) Surendra Nath Tiwari said neither the affected family nor the house owner had filed a formal complaint in the matter.
