Kozhikode: Three people were suffocated to death after they entered a manhole near Palayam in Kozhikode on Thursday.
The deceased were identified as Bhaskar (41), Narasimham (42), both of them hailing from Andhra Pradesh, and auto driver Naushad, a Karuvissery native.
Two of them were contract workers and the other one was an autorickshaw driver in the city who was trying to rescue them.
The incident happened at around 11 a.m after the two workers went into a manhole of the canal for cleaning. Naushad, an auto driver, who came to help them also fell into the manhole and died.