Posted on 12/18/2009 2:53:04 PM PST by posterchild
An Indian villager burrowed for 14 years with a hammer and chisel to cut a tunnel through a mountain so that his neighbours could reach nearby fields and he could park his truck outside his home.
Ramchandra Das, 53, who lives in eastern Bihar state, carved a 10m-long, 4m-wide tunnel through the hill range from his village of Kewati. Das took up the Herculean task after villagers found the 7km trek over the mountain increasingly arduous.
When the authorities refused to help to cut the journey time, Das began carving his way through the earth in the direction of the nearest big town, Atri. The job became more pressing when Das became the first man to own a truck in the village and was unable to drive it to his home.
"I could not park my truck near my house since the mountain blocked my path," he told Reuters. Das said he was also afraid of bandits stealing his truck. "I had to leave my truck miles away, so I decided to do something about it myself," Das said by telephone.
Local villagers, who previously had to trek around the mountain, are now using the tunnel to get to work.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Yes, I’d say that’s right up there with the Protestant work ethic.
And people here gripe about shoveling the driveway L0L
Wow. Just wow.
If I had a hammer, I’d hammer in the evening...
Local engineers were long gone after routing a road around the edifice
and blasting a railway through the heart of the mountain.
The villager wept in sorrow.
10m long by 4m wide...
is that 10 miles or 10 meters? 10 meters doesn’t seem that far
Thank you, President Nixon.
ok, THAT makes more sense
What kind of hills are only 10 meters thru them?
This man would make a fine contribution to our country.
I had a neighbor in the 70's who hand dug an enire basement to their home with a shovel and five gallon bucket. It took them four years of working four hours every evening when they came home from their day jobs. It was beautiful when they were done. It was a two level basement, adding about 60% more square feet to their home.
“If there were an EPA in India or had this been an American who did this near his property, he would be tossed into the hoosgow and the key tossed in the other direction.”
See here:
http://www.desertusa.com/mag05/sep/tunnel.html
The 10m figure corresponds with the other info in the article. The posted article says that the tunnel is used in place of the 7km (4.3 miles) trek around the mountain. That wouldn’t make sense if the tunnel was 8 miles long. Also, I cannot imagine one man could haul away and find a place for all that rock in one lifetime if it were 8 miles long.
I would like to go to India just to shake that man’s hand.
The Indian Government should serious consider a medal of sorts for that man. If he’s not married currently, they need to find a bride for him.
Genes like that need to be preserved for the good of the entire human race.
Wow!
We used to have that work ethic here.
Long ago.
Hmmm..., what a guy will do when he’s a redneck with a truck.... :-)
is that 10 miles or 10 meters? 10 meters doesn’t seem that far
Well that mountain would not be very big if it was 10 meters from one side of the "mountain" to the other side of the "mountain"... LOL...
I assume that "10m-long, 4m-wide" should be "10 km long, 4m wide." Ten kilometers is not eight miles, but it's not too far off.
The Guardian said 10m. That doesn’t seem like much. Either they’ve got their numbers wrong, or this guy was union.
He should charge a toll from his freeloading neighbors.
Local villagers, who previously had to trek around the mountain, are now using the tunnel to get to work.
The guy ought to set up a toll booth, charge a minimal sum, and join the Capitalist Class.
Digging through rock with pick-ax, maybe
“I could not park my truck near my house since the mountain blocked my path,”
Somewhere in here there is a great truck commercial!!!
Wonder if he still owns that truck (?)
"Das was inspired by another Bihari villager, Dasharath Manjhi, who cut a 120m-long, 10m-wide and 8m-high passage so that villagers could reach a local hospital."
It almost has to be referring to meters, since it would take a hell of a man to cut a 120 mile, or even 120 kilometer "passage".
This man is exactly the kind of person America should welcome with open arms if they ever wanted to emigrate to the USA. Can-do people who contribute something tangible & beneficial to their communities/country.
The "10m" in the linked article must be a typo. It should probably be 10 km. If so, then he averaged about two meters per day, which sounds reasonable.
Big John? Jimmy Dean
Every mornin' at the mine you could see him arrive He stood six foot six and weighed 2-45 Kinda broad at the shoulder and narrow at the hip And everybody knew you didn't give no lip to Big John (Big John Big John) Big Bad John (Big John) Nobody seemed to know where John called home Just drifted into town and stayed all alone He didn't say much he kinda quiet and shy And if you spoke at all you just said hi to Big John
Does anyone think that in America the guy did this, that he wouldn’t have been forced to put it all back in the name of some endagered plant?
"Villager Gets 14 Years For Ecological Terrorism, Underground Meth Lab"
bump
Can’t do that in the US - a bunch of environmentalists would sue.
I hope the guy, in the great capitalist tradition, slapped a toll on use of the tunnel.
Did he get a building permit to dig out the basement? Soils report? Engineering study?
He could still be fined by the damned government for doing what he did.
Everything turned out OK?
Not in the eyes of government bastards, whose sole job is is slow down guys like you neighbor. He was supposed to spend at least a 1/2 a day satisfying THEIR demands BEFORE doing anything constructive.
Yeah, I’ve way past my limit of endurance of the crushing weight of goverment.
Rant off.
In 1986 I watched four Mexican workers in Cancun add an entire floor to a hotel under construction using the same five gallon pail method and hand cutting and bending the rebar. It was amazing.
And FWIW, the family were second generation polish immigrants. Hard workers who wasted no time on silly consumerism. Anytime you went to their home, there was homemade bread and stew, home made wine, and we never saw a television in the home.
I’ve considered something similar for the 400 square feet of crawl space I have. I have a partial basement.
Trouble is that the soil is nearly as hard as concrete, which is why it wasn’t dug out in the first place. Everything will have to be chistled out.
.......Everything will have to be chistled out.....
Think hammer drill
Got one, it’s still a monumental job!
Ice Auger, post hole auger connected to a 1.5HP electric motor and a 50/1 gearbox does the trick. You use a block and tackled come along to side angle drill into the hardpan. Once you have a 1’ hole, you use a 10 ton bottle jack to heave the soil above. All done quietly and cleanly.
Where's the high occupancy diamond lane? Are the restrooms spaced no more than one kilometer apart, with handicapped accessible facilities? We'd better not find any of those old energy-wasting incandescent bulbs in there, or else.
It appears that this Gaia-rapist dug his tunnel directly through the world's only known habitat of the endangered carnivorous grunge worm. You can add ecological genocide to his list of violations.
Nice try there Mr. Individual Initiative, but your crime spree ends today. You can break rocks in prison.
Seal 'er up at both ends, boys.
I farmed until 1986 and have a lot of experience with all those kinds of things, built and used them.
For my situation, the most practical would be a small Bobcat and trencher.
Wish I could do what I did when we dug out 8 6 foot wide, 3 foot deep, 55 feet long trenches in the hog barn, hydraulic auger on a Bobact -— 4” hole, fill with feritlizer-—— and a bit a dynamite, boom, everything was loose in a second.
10 meters long? Mountain?
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