Let Me Breathe, Said Earth.

It was Sunday afternoon and most of the town's population was in their houses. This was an off day for most of the factory workers who work in 3 different shifts. But on that day only a few people have their shifts. Saroj Sarkar worked in the boiler plant of the factory as the supervisor and about two hundred people work under him. His shift in-charge Rajiv Das was also inside the plant on that afternoon when a small leakage was found in the main steam supply pipe of one of the boilers. There are three of them. The pipe was fitted to a turbine which supplied power to the main rotors of the weaving mill. At about five O'clock the leakage was detected and Rajiv instructed his deputy to seal the leak immediately. He asked for permission from the maintenance in charge who allowed him to go ahead but without shutting down the machines. Rajiv said that it was too risky to do the welding without stopping the machine. But the head of the maintenance wasn't ready to listen. He reiterated that the job should be done without a break in production since the proprietor was really upset about the last month's poor production.

Rajiv took the risk as he was forced to continue the production and tried to seal the leakage. And a huge blast occurred in which the main boiler and the adjacent one were completely destroyed. There was a huge fire that engulfed the entire boiler plant and subsequently, the third boiler also went off and the inferno spread into several other parts of the factory including its storehouse and go down. The factory within the next few hours was a massive heap of ash & debris. Nearly 100 workers lost their lives.

Two months earlier to this horrible accident the state pollution board had issued a prohibitory order to stop the operation of the factory to do the necessary maintenance work. But the factory authorities secretly continued the production. Due to lack of maintenance, many spurious gases were being regularly released to the atmosphere polluting the environment of the entire industrial town. But who cares for the environment? Who cares for mother earth and the entire plant and animal kingdom?

The present society and the people who are financially & socially well off only think about their money and themselves. So people who work under them for a livelihood lose their lives. The atmosphere gets regularly polluted causing respiratory diseases. Mother earth is in distress. She needs relief. She needs to breathe free. But who is there to listen? Is there any?