Vadodara: Around seven persons - four sanitation workers and three employees were asphyxiated to death in the wee hours of Saturday while cleaning the septic tank of a highway hotel in Vadodara district. The police said the incident occurred after midnight at Darshan Hotel in Fartikui village of Dabhoi tehsil which is some 30 km from Vadodara.

The police told reporters that 47-year-old Mahesh Patanwadiya was the first to go inside the septic tank. Others outside got worried when he did not come out for some time despite being called by them. Ashok Harijan, 45, then entered to look for Mahesh, followed by 23-year-old Brijesh Harijan and Mahesh Harijan, 25. When the four sanitation workers didn't come out, the three employees of the hotel, Vijay Chaudhary, Sahadev Vasava and Ajay Vasava, all 22 years old, went inside and reportedly fell unconscious and later died after inhaling toxic fumes.