A 75-year-old man died af­ter com­ing in­to con­tact with a high-ten­sion wire while car­ry­ing out work on the roof of a church in Pe­nal.

Hamil Pha­goo, of Mara­bel­la, was work­ing on the roof of Praise As­sem­bly Church when the in­ci­dent oc­curred. Re­ports say he touched a live 12,000-volt high-ten­sion wire and was fa­tal­ly elec­tro­cut­ed.

Shawn Mo­hammed, an eye­wit­ness, said he saw the men car­ry­ing out their du­ties on a scaf­fold when the in­ci­dent un­fold­ed. Mo­hammed de­scribed the in­ci­dent as “trag­ic.”

He al­so said the vic­tim suf­fered se­vere burns fol­low­ing what ap­peared to be an ex­plo­sion.

“He had plen­ty of burns on his hands and what­ev­er, part of his body be­cause of a big ex­plo­sion,” he said.

Pha­goo’s col­league, a Venezue­lan na­tion­al iden­ti­fied as Luis Freire, suf­fered se­vere burns to his hand dur­ing the in­ci­dent. He was tak­en to the Siparia Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty for med­ical treat­ment.

Au­thor­i­ties are ex­pect­ed to in­ves­ti­gate the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the in­ci­dent.