Close-up of the hard work of making a living underground
(Baonghean.vn) - Among the many professions, well digging is considered one of the most difficult, arduous, and dangerous professions with many lurking risks.
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| In the past, in every village, every house dug a well to get water for daily use, and there were many well-digging teams. Now, people mainly use tap water and well water, so the need for well digging is less, so there are not many well-digging workers. They often work in groups, each group has at least 3 people (1 person digging, 1 person turning the pulley, 1 person pouring soil). In the photo: A group of workers digging a well in Hung Tien commune, Nam Dan district. |
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| The hot, dry summer is when well diggers are most active. Tools used for digging wells include hoes, crowbars, and a set of hand-cranked pulleys mounted on a temporary wooden platform. In the photo: The pulleys are placed on the mouth of the well. |
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| In the past, when the well mouth was deep underground, people used a leafy tree branch to pull up and drop down continuously to ventilate; now workers often tie an electric fan to a pulley frame on the well mouth, blowing down the well, both ventilating and cooling. |
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| Well diggers are mostly strong, brave, and not afraid of danger. In a group of workers, if there are 2 people who know how to dig, they can take turns. |
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| According to Mr. Nguyen Xuan Khoa (45 years old) - a well digger in Xuan Lam commune, Nam Dan district: Digging wells in mountainous areas is difficult but quite safe, there is no fear of the well collapsing, while digging in the plains, the soil is soft, easy to dig, but quite dangerous, especially in riverside areas. When encountering areas prone to subsidence, the group of workers must dig and drop the culvert at the same time. When not finished, the diggers must return to the narrow well culvert to operate, which is an "extremely hard" and dangerous job. |
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| If the workers only use rudimentary tools such as crowbars and hoes to work, it will be very difficult, especially in dry, hard ground, full of gravel, slate or boulders. If the workers have a drilling machine, digging a well will be less difficult and faster. However, drilling in deep wells is not easy. The well digging contract is only completed when: "dig until there is water". |
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| Mr. Nguyen Van Thang - a long-time well digger in Thanh Khe commune, Thanh Chuong district said: When working in a well, there is usually only one main worker who takes on all the work, drilling, digging, shoveling soil, carrying rocks... The main worker has a hard time because he has to work hard and face many dangers lurking inside and above the well. |
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| The two people at the mouth of the well must work while paying close attention to the main worker working at the bottom of the well, to coordinate smoothly, start the pulley to pull the soil, return the buckets and promptly handle any problems. |
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| On rainy days or when encountering strong geysers, digging wells is also difficult, the people in the well have to dig and draw water at the same time. Mr. Nguyen Xuan Khoa added: The group dug wells in the hilly area with a well diameter of about 1.4 m, each day only digging about 0.8 m deep. The current price per meter of depth ranges from 800 thousand to 1 million VND. |
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| According to the experience of well diggers, after digging up soil and rocks, they must be dumped far from the mouth of the well, especially the re-excavated wells, to avoid water seepage and subsidence around the well, causing the well to collapse as has happened in some places. According to the concept of well diggers, when encountering creatures such as toads and frogs that accidentally jump into the well, they are "saved" by putting them in buckets or basins and lifting them up from the surface of the well. |
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| Mr. Phan Van Su (42 years old) in Thanh Tung commune, Thanh Chuong district - who returned from the "grim reaper" after the well collapse in Thanh Ha commune (May 2019) said: Well digging is a hard and arduous job, with many potential risks and accidents, such as injuries (due to falling buckets, pots, rocks); electric shock; suffocation from toxic gas and the most dangerous is a well collapse accident. However, because of the need to make a living, there is no other job, so he has to follow the well digging profession. In the photo: After finishing a hard day of digging a well, the worker follows the winch to the surface. |
| Clip: The hard work of digging wells |
