VietNamNet Bridge – Not seeing colleagues who entered a fish oil tank to collect samples to return, five others turn by turn came in to check and all of them died of suffocation, including the director and deputy director. The incident occurred yesterday at a catfish oil processing in the Mekong Delta Province of Dong Thap.

The factory where the incident occured.

Around 9 am on September 4, a laboratory staff of the fish powder and fish oil factory of the IDI Fisheries Factory in Binh Thanh Commune, Lap Vo District, Dong Thap Province entered a catfish oil tank to take samples for testing. Not seeing the colleague return after a long time, another employee entered the tank to check.

This employee also did not return after a period of time. The factory’s director, vice director and two other workers came in to rescue them but they were also suffocated and fell into the fish oil tank.

The factory workers smashed the tank to take the victims out. However, all of them had died. While breaking the tank, a worker named Dang Van An, 28 years old from Nam Dinh Province was seriously injured and was taken to the hospital of Lap Vo District.

Fish oil tanks in the factory.

The dead victims include the factory director Mai Huu Ton, 31, deputy director Trieu Ba Tra, 39, Lam Thanh Phong, 35, Tran Tan Loi, 27, Le Dinh Thai, 27 and Le Xuan Thuan, 20.

Colonel Nguyen Thanh Long, chief police of Lap Vo district police, said that according to initial information, the victims were dead due to choking from fish oil gas. The scene examination and autopsy did not finish by 4pm of the same day.

After the accident, the local authorities have granted VND3 million ($150) to the family of each victim while the IDI company promised to provide each family with VND100 million ($5,000) for the burial.

Quoc Huy