Chennai, Jul 17 (IANS): Two contractual workers were buried alive after a landslip occurred while they were working inside an underground for laying drainage pipelines. The incident occurred in the wee hours of Sunday at Suttur in Virduhunagar district of Tamil Nadu. The two were engaged in laying under ground drainage pipelines.

Police said that the deceased N. Sakthivel (45) and K. Krishnamoorthy (51) are both residents of Kallakurichi. According to information available, 35 contractual workers were employed by an Andhra Pradesh-based private company for carrying out underground drainage pipelines.

Seven workers including Sakthivel and Krishnamoorthy were working in the Mukkrundathal area in Suttur on Saturday night. In the early morning on Sunday, Sakthivel and Krishnamoorthy went inside the deep pit to join the pipeline, when a landslide occurred and both were buried alive.

Fire and rescue force personnel and police reached the spot and the bodies of the two men could be pulled out after two hours. The bodies have been sent to the Virudhunagar Medical college hospital for postmortem and further investigation in the matter is on.