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.
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