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The mishap
After 46 hours of search operations, the body of a sanitation worker who had gone missing while cleaning a canal in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala was discovered by the rescue team on Monday morning. The body identified as Joy has been transferred to Thiruvananthapuram Medical College.
Joy’s remains were found approximately a kilometer from where disappeared in a canal stretch behind Sree Chitra Home at Thakaraparambu. Heavy rainfall had swept his body away. Joy, a 47 year old contractual laborer, had started cleaning parts of the Amayizhanjan Canal with two colleagues on Saturday according to the Press Trust of India (PTI). He went missing near the Thampanoor Central Railway Station.
Rajeev and Manoj the other two workers confirmed that the body was Joy’s as they were the first ones to identify him post joining the rescue search near Thakaraparambu. On Monday, a team from the Indian Navy which had arrived on Sunday night joined the rescue efforts.
The rescue
On Sunday a comprehensive rescue team including the fire force, their scuba team, police, civic workers and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) worked to find Joy. Bandicoot robot from the tech startup GenRobotics developed for the Kerala Water Authority were deployed by the scuba divers to locate the body. However, they faced difficulties due to insufficient light inside the tunnel.
The search was further hampered by accumulated waste in the canal making it hard for the scuba divers to proceed. Vojin M, a scuba diver from the Thiruvananthapuram unit mentioned that the large bundles of garbage including sacks, polythenes and bags obstructed their progress. Joy, who had secured the cleaning contract from the Railways for 1500 bucks only, is survived by his mother, Melhi.
What next?
This raises concerns for the practice of manual scavenging prevalent in India with a bare minimum monetary reward and a lack of safety guaranteed for the ones who risk their lives. Not only do these incidents show a lack of responsibility of ordinary citizens and big corporations towards nature but also highlight failed government laws and employers who trade human lives.
(with inputs from news agencies)
