A 23-year-old Nepali worker died at Al Wakrah stadium, one of the venues to host the 2022 World Cup.
The Guardian reported that the family of the Nepali worker who died in Qatar, Tej Narayan Tharu, burned his body on the banks of the Bodhi River in southeastern Nepal amid the wailing and despair of his wife Renuka Chaudhary.
“A friend of his called and told us he had fallen down. We only found that he had actually died after lots of calls and digging,” Chaudhary told the Guardian.
The Guardian has spoken to four people with direct knowledge of the incident. The sources say Tharu was carrying a large board along a 35 metre-high walkway at night, when the accident occurred.
“He fell off from the walkway … It’s usually considered safe. But people from another company had removed a [floor] plate, creating a gap. He failed to see it and fell through it,” said one source.
The family has received compensation from two Nepali insurance schemes but it is not enough to secure their future.
Tharu’s death and the authorities’ response have similarities to that of Zac Cox, a British construction worker who fell to his death at the Khalifa World Cup stadium in January 2017. Cox’s family struggled to obtain information about his death. A British coroner investigating it concluded he died because of substandard equipment, describing his working environment as “downright dangerous”.