The bodies of three persons, trapped inside a 54-foot ring well near New Shillong township on Thursday morning, were recovered in the evening.

The under-construction ring well (so called because of the concrete/terracotta/ceramic rings encasing it) is located on a private land at Diengiong, 15km from here and near the North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences, Mawdiangdiang, the location of New Shillong township.

The contractor of the ring well, K. Marbaniang, told The Telegraph at the site, “Four labourers began work on this well around 8am. While three went in, one was outside.” However, he said, he was not at the site when the incident occurred. One labourer who did not enter the well, Ram Syiem, said the incident occurred between 10am and 10.40am. He said the first to go inside the well at 10am was Warles Kharsyntiew.

“He went in to remove the rope attached to the concrete rings. When he did not return, Banplielad Syiem and Lamphrang Lyngdoh went in. But we didn’t hear Kharsyntiew shout for help. I think he got submerged in the water in the well,” Ram, the younger brother of Banplielad, said.

When the three did not come out after some time, Ram rushed to New Shillong township for help.

Soon after the incident came to light, personnel from the Meghalaya Fire and Emergency Service, State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and police were pressed into action. They manually dewatered the well, which had around 12 feet of water, to some extent before pressing into service a floating dewatering pump.

As the water receded, one SDRF personnel went inside without any oxygen backup and detected one body.

However, when he went in again to pull the body up, he nearly lost consciousness because of lack of oxygen inside the well.

But he was pulled to the surface in time and recovered after around 10 minutes.

Before the divers arrived, an SDRF member was able to extricate another body. The second and third bodies were retrieved by divers. The bodies were recovered between 7pm and 8pm.

Police and rescue officials suspect that Kharsyntiew became unconscious due to lack of oxygen, lost hold of his rope, fell in the water and drowned. When he did not come out, the other two went in simultaneously, using a single rope, which snapped because of the pressure.

All the three labourers and the contractor hail from Umroi village in Meghalaya’s Ri Bhoi district.

Umroi legislator George B. Lyngdoh rushed to the spot along with senior police officials.

Family members of the trapped labourers have also arrived at the site.

Marbaniang said the work had been initiated more than two weeks ago and the well was being dug manually. “Earlier, we were working in another location but since we couldn’t detect water, we shifted to this location,” he added.