According to the public prosecutor and police, a fifth person died in hospital after the accident in a leather factory in Runkel (Limburg-Weilburg district). The 60-year-old man died on Thursday from the serious injuries he sustained in the industrial accident on April 16th.
Rescue workers took five men out of the pit on the company premises on April 16th. Three of them, aged 38, 58 and 59, died on site, the other two were taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries. One of them, another 35-year-old employee of the company, died in hospital a week ago as a result of the accident. The man who has now died was an employee of a pipe cleaning company from Montabaur in Rhineland-Palatinate.
After the accident, there was an accusation of negligent homicide. A spokesman for the Limburg public prosecutor’s office said at the request of the German Press Agency that appropriate investigations were being carried out against unknown persons. Questions such as whether the affected workers wore respiratory protection and protective clothing when entering the pit and whether and in what form gas measurements were carried out in the pit at that time are the subject of the investigation.
Short-term results from the reports commissioned in connection with the accident are not expected; the exact course of the accident remains part of the ongoing investigation, the public prosecutor’s office and the police said on Friday.
