A labourer was killed while two others were hospitalised on Saturday in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Bajaur district after inhaling toxic gas in an under-construction water well they were working on.

The incident occurred in the Dabgay Shamozo area of Utman Khel in Bajaur.

Bajaur Rescue 1122 spokesperson Amjad Ali told Dawn.com, “Three labourers were digging a water well in the Dabgay Shamozo area when they suddenly fell unconscious.”

He said the Rescue 1122 team responded to the emergency and moved the labourers to the District Headquarters Hospital Bajaur in Khar.

He said one of the labourers was declared dead by the doctors in the hospital emergency department while the remaining two were in critical condition.

Last month, five men, including a sanitation worker and two brothers, died after inhaling toxic gases in an underground water tank in Karachi’s Ibrahim Hyderi.