Balasore: In a saddening incident, at least two crew members died of suffocation while unloading fish from a boat in Odisha’s Balasore district on Monday.
A fishing boat reportedly reached near the Naupalgadi seashore under the Balaramgadi Marine Police Station limits of the district today after netting a huge quantity of fish from deep sea.
As part of their work, the concerned crew members of the boat soon started to unload the fish from the boat. However, in the process two of them suffered from suffocation and became critical.
Immediately, they were rushed to the Balasore District Headquarter Hospital (DHH) for treatment. But the doctors declared both of them – Prabhakar Mallick and Sashina Mallick of Aruha village in Basudevpur police station limits- dead on arrival.
While the exact cause of their deaths are yet to be ascertained, it is suspected that both Prabhakar and Sashina suffered from asphyxiation following the gas that emitted due to use of chemical ‘formaldehyde. This chemical is used reportedly to preserve fish and keep them fresh for several days.
Meanwhile, a pall of gloom descended on the locality following the unfortunate and untimely deaths of Prabhakar and Sashina.
Local police have started an investigation into the matter by sending the bodies for postmortem to find out the exact cause of their deaths.