Three contract workers died on the evening of November 9 at Tata Electronics’ iPhone components plant near Hosur in Tamil Nadu, India, after they were overcome inside a wastewater treatment tank. The Press Trust of India reported the deaths from Krishnagiri district, and Reuters reported that Apple, Tata and state authorities will investigate, with one source saying an Apple team was visiting the plant to help.
Apple has not issued a public statement. Apple, Tata Electronics and Nalco Water, the company that runs the treatment plant, did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
Police say the three workers collapsed one after another inside an effluent tank
According to police accounts carried by PTI, the crew was desilting a storage tank at the plant’s effluent treatment facility when they were exposed to toxic fumes and low oxygen. PTI named the dead as Kaveri, B Akmal and M Sarathi Kumar. Local reports differ slightly on their ages and home towns.
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PTI’s account says Akmal looked into the tank to inspect it and collapsed. Sarathi Kumar went in to check on him and fainted. Kaveri then went in and also died. A fourth member of the crew saw what happened and raised the alarm. Rescuers pulled all three out, and doctors at a private hospital in Hosur declared them dead on arrival. Their bodies went to Government Medical College Hospital in Krishnagiri for post-mortem examinations.
Reuters quoted a district official as saying the workers inhaled gas while inspecting an external nano-filtration tank. No report so far has named the gas involved, and police told the Millennium Post that the cause will be confirmed only after the post-mortems and the investigation.
Officials say adequate precautions were not taken, and Tata must file an action report
Krishnagiri district collector C Dinesh Kumar visited the site. PTI reported that he named asphyxiation during sludge removal as the primary cause of death and announced an inquiry into a breach of safety regulations. He told the Millennium Post that preliminary findings suggested “adequate precautions had not been taken” at the effluent treatment facility. An official from the Directorate of Industrial Safety and Health said the workers lacked appropriate safety protection, the paper reported.
The collector has also directed Tata Electronics’ management to submit a detailed action taken report, The People’s Board reported. Tamil Nadu Industries Minister Virudhai Magal Keerthana said on X that the deaths will be “thoroughly investigated and appropriate action will be taken based on the findings,” as quoted by Business Today.
The chain of responsibility runs through several companies. Tata owns the plant. Nalco Water, a subsidiary of US-based Ecolab, operated the treatment facility. The three workers were employed by a subcontractor that Nalco Water had hired. Nalco Water said it takes the incident “extremely seriously” and is working with local authorities.
Tata makes iPhone casings in Hosur and assembles about 40% of India’s iPhones
This plant makes metal casings and back panels for iPhones, according to the Millennium Post. Reuters, as cited by Business Today, puts Tata’s share of iPhone assembly in India at roughly 40%, with Foxconn handling the rest. India now accounts for roughly a quarter of the world’s iPhones, Reuters says.
Two industry sources told Reuters that production was not affected, because the factory was already closed for the Deepavali holiday that week. For buyers, that means no near-term effect on iPhone supply. The bigger question is the human one, and whether the investigation finds failures that Apple’s supplier rules were supposed to prevent.
This is not the first serious incident at the Hosur site. In September 2024, a fire in a chemical storage area disrupted component production for several days. Earlier in 2026, the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board raised concerns that wastewater was contaminating nearby wells. Tata said independent testing showed it was in compliance, and the board dropped further action. Reuters has not linked those complaints to the deaths.
Apple’s supplier rules require regular safety inspections, and this probe will test them
Apple’s supplier responsibility page says “health and safety are top priorities” and that suppliers must regularly inspect their facilities, machines and the chemicals they use. Apple says it ran 895 assessments of supplier facilities in 2025, and more than 20% of them were unannounced visits.
Those rules cover the companies Apple contracts with, but the people who died worked two steps down the chain, for a subcontractor of a contractor. That layering makes it harder to pin down who was responsible for gas checks, protective gear and rescue plans, which is exactly what the district’s inquiry into a breach of safety regulations now has to establish.
India has become central to Apple’s plans, even as iPhone sales in India fell 20% in the third quarter. We will update this story if Apple, Tata or Nalco Water comment.
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