Four laborers from Afghanistan died after inhaling toxic gas inside a septic tank at a plastic waste collection center in Shiraz city in southern Iran, officials told local media.
According to Hadi Eidipour, the head of Shiraz municipality’s fire service, a fifth man is being treated in hospital. He said the four workers died after one of them was trapped inside and the others went to save him.
Eidipour told reporters the incident took place on Sunday morning in the village of Gachi. Fire and rescue teams were dispatched to the scene but it was too late to save them, he said.
While four of them died from the inhalation of toxic gasses, the fifth one survived and is currently undergoing treatment at a hospital, according to media reports.
All of them were from the same family – a 64-year-old father and his three sons aged 25, 27, 34.
Eidipour said the septic tank contained many toxic gasses, including hydrogen sulfide, methane and carbon dioxide, and there was no ventilation which led to the poisoning.
