In a tragic incident, two workers at the Gangavaram Port in Visakhapatnam died on Friday after they were buried under a heap of coal that fell on top of them.
The police said that the deceased, identified as 43-year-old Ramaraju and 59-year-old K Mohan Rao was supervising loading operations in the transit area when the heap fell on them.
The incident took place at around 2 am on Friday. While Ramaraju was reported to be an employee at Gangavaram Port Limited (GPL), Mohan Rao was a contract employee, the police said.
According to the police, the coal was placed on berth number 3 and was part of the cargo of a ship that was unloaded at the port three days ago. Even as the unloaded cargo was being cleared, a new ship reached the port, and that's when tragedy struck.
“Both the employees were directing the operation for the new ship when the heap collapsed on them,” New Port Police Station Inspector Somasekhara Rao told The Hindu.
"Mechanised equipment was deployed immediately and both the persons were taken out and sent to the King George Hospital in the city where they were declared dead," a GPL release was quoted as saying.
Visakhapatnam has two ports, one operated by GPL and the other operated by the Visakhapatnam Port Trust.
In September last year, a mishap occurred at the port overseen by the VPT as a foreign ship tilted dangerously to one side after the crane operator wrongly loaded cargo to one side of the ship, which resulted in an imbalance.
The crew on board the ship, immediately disembarked, following which survey teams rushed to the spot.
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