Bhubaneswar: An elderly man died on Tuesday in a lift accident near Sundarpada on the outskirts of Odisha’s capital.
The accident took place at High Tech Plaza Owners Association residential society.
The victim was waiting for the elevator car to arrive to go down. When the door opened, he stepped inside, only to fall to his death as the elevator car was not there.
“We used torches and found Mohapatra in the pit around 8 pm,” society joint secretary BSK Chottaray said.
He was rushed to the hospital where doctors declared him dead, he added.
There has been no complaint regarding the lift’s operations in the last one month and it was operational throughout the day. The lock of its grill, however, was damaged, when Mohapatra was taken out of the pit, the society office bearers told a national daily.
The Airfield police are probing why the lift malfunctioned.
According to police, the grill locking system had developed a fault before the accident because it does not open until the lift cabin arrives on a floor. “Mohapatra was lying on one side of the pit and had sustained head injuries. A case of unnatural death has been registered and the probe is continuing,” said an officer of Airfield police station.
The postmortem report will reveal the exact cause behind the death, the officer added.
