HARIPUR: As many as 16 factory workers sustained severe burn injuries when tonnes of molten steel fell down from a big bucket at a steel manufacturing unit in Hattar Economic Zone here on Wednesday.

Local police said that six of the injured were in critical condition at the Wah Cantonment Hospital, while 10 others had been taken to Jinnah Hospital, Lahore.

Hattar police quoted Sadam Hussain, son of one of the injured workers Khadim Hussain, as saying that the workers of morning shift of a steel factory at Hattar phase-Il were busy in steel bars manufacturing when at around 8:00am the bucket carrying hot liquid steel substance from the furnace to the molders fell on them after snapping of the rope due to some mechanical fault.

Naeem, one of the injured, said that that the place where the bucket fell caught fire.

Sources said that since the factory management had no occupational safety and health system available the fire engines were called from Haripur that put out the fire saving rest the of building and adjoining industrial units. The police have registered a case against the factory owners and management.

Those injured included Naeem Abbas, Saddam, Nadeem, Saifullah son of Akbar, Saifullah son of Razaq, Fazal Ahmed, Afzal, Wasim, Shahbaz, Waqas Khan, Sajid, Jehangir, Shahid and Ikram.

According to SHO Hattar Hadi Paristan Khan, neither the factory nor the entire economic zone had an ambulance which forced the police and rescue workers to shift the injured to the Wah Cantonment Hospital on private vehicles.

He said that all the injured workers were in the age group of 20 to 35 and most of them had suffered over 60 per cent of burns.

Qamar Hayat, a labour leader, said that the factory management had no arrangements for providing occupational safety and health protection to the workers.-Correspondent