Person suffers burns during digging

A construction labourer suffered burn injuries while working in a trench to repair a septic tank piping. The person using a power tool to remove the damaged pipe hit an LPG line in the trench and the sparks led to fire engulfing the person. The injured with difficulty came out of the trench and rolled over the grass to extinguish flames. The person who engaged the injured was penalised for various lapses.

From the description about the incident, the lapses that come to notice are,

1. Whether any permission taken for digging where the gas lines are present. It is a widely followed safety practice to identify presence of utility lines like electrical/gas/water in the area proposed for digging and take precautions to ensure safety of the persons and property. If it is in a factory area, concerned engineer will give clearance and in case of public area, town planning engineer will give such clearance.
2. From the photograph in the weblink, service line identification marks are not visible in the area.
3. Absence of measures for preventing trench cave-in.
4. Lack of proper means of access/egress from the trench like a ladder at 30 m distance intervals.
5. Whether only one person was engaged for such work and if not what happened to other workers.
6. Absence of supervision.

Most of accidents reported are leak/fire/explosion due to puncturing of gas lines during digging.