Bangladeshi worker survives near miss

A Bangladeshi construction worker narrowly escaped death last week after he was buried in the sand at a construction site in Abu Dhabi.

The worker was digging a deep pit for the foundations of a multi-storey building being constructed at Hamdan Street when the Asian worker was engulfed in sand. He lay buried up to his neck in sand for around an hour until his fellow workers noticed he was missing.

“I was directing the traffic just five metres away from the site of the accident, when I observed that one man who was digging a deep pit was not there”, said a worker at the Hamdan Street site.

The worker said when he reached the pit area the man had gone deep into the sand while hot sand continued to engulfed him. “I could see only part of his head above the level of the pit, which is eight-feet deep from the ground level,” the labourer added.

Fellow workers eventually managed to pull the pale and unconscious man out of the sand after a struggle.After being rescued, the man was immediately provided with first aid by medical staff who arrived at the site in an ambulance minutes before the man was rescued. He was then put on a respirator and his condition was declared stable after 15-minutes.

The Bangladeshi worker had only recently joined the construction company and was working along with half a dozen fellow construction labourers on a large development in the capital.