One dead as six Uzbeks fall into well

Moscow, April 4 (IANS/RIA Novosti) Six migrants from Uzbekistan fell into an abandoned well one by one, while trying to help each other out in a Russian village, officials said. One of them drowned.

The incident took place in Volgograd region when one migrant fell into a well in a field in which they were working. The well had some three metres of an unspecified "toxic liquid with an acrid smell" at the bottom.

Co-workers tried to get him out but the rescue mission went wrong, with five of them also falling into the well, trying to get the first man out.

One of them drowned, while two were put into intensive care in a hospital in Volzhsky city. It remained unclear who got the workers out.

Police in a press release said the well, located on the premises of a former pig farm, was filled with the "toxic liquid" that poisoned the six men.

--IANS/RIA Novosti

pm