Bodies of four Nepali road construction workers, who were buried in a landslide in Himachal Pradesh for over 18 hours, were recovered on Thursday, police said.
The victims, identified as Ajay, Lokinder, Davinder and Ram Bahadur, were cutting a rock when they got trapped in falling boulders around 5 p.m. due to the landslide near Rampur town, 120 km from the state capital on Wednesday.
"The bodies were recovered beneath the boulders," Deputy Superintendent of Police Som Dutt told IANS.
The rescue operation could not be launched till Thursday morning as the accident spot was remote and was experiencing falling debris.
Eyewitnesses said most of the workers involved in the road construction were employed by a contractor.
The administration had a tough time extracting the victims from the rubble, though villagers started the rescue operations before the authorities could reach the spot, an eyewitness said.
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The government has announced an ex-gratia of Rs 400,000 to the next of kin of each of the victims.
--IANS
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