A member of a construction crew was killed in Pursat province yesterday when a well he was digging caved in on top of him.

Along with two other workers, Kong Piseth, 37, had climbed down into a hole that had been dug by an excavator in Pursat’s Krakor district, said Khiev Sokha, Kbal Trach commune’s police chief.

After the fatal accident, the escavator driver told police that as the three men worked, the hole caved in, Sokha said. While the other two were able to jump and hang from the excavator’s bucket, Piseth was trapped underneath the falling dirt and rocks.

“The vehicle driver started to spade the land to dig the victim out immediately, but he had already died,” Sokha said yesterday.

The body of Piseth, who was a native of Kandal province’s Kien Svay district, was delivered to his family in Kandal for a traditional funeral, Sokha said.