Three women and a 10-year-old girl died after a mound of mud fell on them on Tuesday morning at Mohanpura in Kasganj district of Uttar Pradesh when they were collecting mud from a ditch dug for the construction of a bridge, police said.

Hari Om, a local who was at the spot when the incident occurred, said: “It happened around 7am. They had gone to collect yellow soil. The soil is used in puja and to apply a layer on the outer wall of mud houses. It is considered auspicious. While they entered the pit and were collecting soil, a mound of sand kept above fell on them. Some villagers of Rampur and Kataur brought out four bodies. Eight others suffered injuries. The local authorities took over the rescue operation from usaround 9am.”

“There is a Radha Soami Satsang camp adjacent to the incident site. The pit was dug not by the National Highways authorities but by labourers deployed by the satsang members,” Om added.

Additional superintendent of police Rakesh Bharti confirmed the deaths.

“Nine people had gone to dig mud for a function at their homes and entered a 10-foot-deep ditch whose wall crashed on them. The ditch was dug for the construction of a bridge in the area,” he said.

“Five people are undergoing treatment,” he added.

The deceased were identified as Ram Beti, 29, Prema Devi, 36, Saraswati, 27, and Pinky, 10, all of them natives of Rampur village, Naresh, the police outpost in-charge of Mohanpura, said.

Kasganj chief medical officer Dr Rajiv Agrawal told reporters: “Nine people were brought to the district hospital in Kasganj, of whom four died. Two women were referred to Aligarh while the rest are being treated here.”

Hemwati Devi, an injured woman, told reporters at the hospital: “We had gone there to collect yellow soil as we use it on the occasion of Tulsi Vivah, an annual festival. We use the soil to plant a tulsi tree in front of our home.”

Additional reporting by PTI