Lima (AFP)
Two 18-year-old Peruvian youth workers at McDonald's died of electric shocks Sunday night while cleaning a kitchen, Peruvian police said on Monday.
"We are investigating the case, a group of experts is on the spot," a source from the Criminal Police Department told AFP.
The victims, a young man and a young woman, had just finished their secondary studies and had been working night shifts for six months in a restaurant of the American fast-food giant in the west of the capital Lima.
Police said the young woman suffered an electric shock while working on a soda machine. His colleague, while trying to rescue him, was also electrocuted.
The restaurant chain declared two days of mourning and closure of all of its restaurants in the country, a measure that "will not affect the remuneration" of its employees, she said in a statement.
The prosecution has ordered a criminal investigation to clarify the circumstances of the tragedy, including "the reasons why the emergency services would not have had immediate access to the victims," he said in a statement.
The police were responsible for "inspecting the electrical installations", verifying compliance with safety rules and establishing the conditions under which the victims were working at the time of the accident.
The mother of the electrocuted young man, Rocio Zapata, regretted Monday, on public television TV Perú, that the restaurant chain only reported "an electric shock" without giving further details to the relatives of the victims.
The company operating McDonald's restaurants in Peru has announced an internal investigation, and has assured that it will cooperate with the police investigation.
The municipality of Pueblo Libre, the neighborhood where the restaurant where the accident took place, has closed it until further notice for non-compliance with safety rules.
© 2019 AFP