Four Indian-origin Sikh men in northern Italy drowned in a sewage tank on a cattle farm on Thursday due to the carbon dioxide emerging from the cow manure, according to media reports.
The incident took place at a cattle farm in Arena Po near Pavia, a city in south Milan, according to a report by ANSA news agency.
Among the deceased, two were brothers – the 48-year-old Prem and 45-year-old Tarsem Singh, who were running the farm, which they registered in 2017. The other two were workers, identified as the 29-year-old Arminder Singh and 28-year-old Manjinder Singh.
According to initial investigations, the three men jumped to save the life of a worker who was emptying the tank to use the manure as a fertilizer on the farm’s fields, the BBC reported.
According to the report, the investigators suspect that the four died due to the carbon dioxide fumes coming from the cow manure. As soon as the men failed to turn up for lunch, the victims’ wives raised the alarm and they rushed to the scene and spotted one body in the sewage.
The women then called in the firefighters, who put on masks and emptied the tank to retrieve all the bodies, the report said.
The farm, which provides milk and veal cattle, is one of the biggest in the Pavia region, according to an Italian media report.
The Italian Agriculture Minister Teresa Bellanova, who was farm laborer herself as a teenager, in a tweet condoled the deaths, saying safety at work is an inalienable right and we must make every effort to ensure it is respected.
Italy’s public broadcaster Rai said the Arena Po tragedy brings to 486 the total of deaths in work accidents in Italy this year – the highest toll since 2016, the BBC report said.
