Two men drowned in Northern Rakhine state on Monday when the excavator one of them was operating toppled into a river, Burmese-language outlet Eleven Media is reporting.
The accident occurred late that night as the excavator was transporting mounds of dirt from the shore onto a barge in Kan Seik village, Pauk Taw Township.
The machine’s 35-year-old operator, Htun Win, was still inside when it toppled into the river, police said, while the excavator’s tipping motion threw co-worker Than Zaw Oo, 18, into the water.
“The 22-ton excavator was being operated on the river’s edge, digging up dirt. After it fell and one side was submerged, the operator was [trapped] inside. The other man was flung into the river and drowned,” a Pauk Taw police officer told Eleven Media.
Local police have opened a case investigating the owners of the machine under section 304(a) of the Penal Code, which pertains to deaths caused by negligence, a charge that carries a prison term of up to 10 years.
“We are investigating these two deaths. There are five owners who bought the crane together,” an officer told Eleven Media.
Charging someone with negligence in the event of death is common police practice in Myanmar, almost as a matter of routine, rather than careful consideration of culpability.
It is simply “police custom to automatically open a negligence case”, a police officer from Mawlaymyine told the Myanmar Times in 2015.
