A 23-year-old Ph D student from Indian Institute of Tecnology-Delhi, died on Wednesday during her research trip to Gujarat’s Lothal after an excavation pit near the Harappan Valley Civilisation site collapsed on her and her professor.
The deceased, Surabhi Verma, had gone to the ancient port city of Lothal to study paleoclimatology as part of a join team comprising four researchers from IIT-Delhi and IIT-Gandhinagar. The incident took place at around 11 AM.
Police said that an Accidental Death (AD) report has been filed. The condition of the 45-year-old rescued professor, Yama Dixit from IIT-Delhi, is said to be “fragile”.
A team has been sent to Lothal by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Vadodara Circle, to investigate the incident and submit a report.
“The team had dug up a pit in Lothal and were collecting samples when the pit collapsed, burying two of the four members at the spot. It took the police 15 minutes to reach the site due to the distance between the accident spot and the nearest police station. In all, there were five people there, including the driver,” The Indian Express quoted Om Prakash Jat, Superintendent of Police, Rural Ahmedabad as saying.
The nearest police station from Lothal is located 20 km away in Koth, and Ahmedabad is 70 km away from the place.
SP Jat also stated Professor Dixit was rescued “but her condition was fragile”. She was moved to Amedabad’s CHC Bagodara, from where she was later taken to Apollo Hospital in Gandhinagar since she had breathing issues and her oxygen levels were lower than the optimum levels.
Dixit is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences (CAS) at IIT-Delhi where the deceased student was pursuing her research.
P N Gohil, Sub Inspector, Koth police station said the research team was carrying out their exercise in an area which was outside the boundaries of the main protected archeological site.
“The academicians were conducting their sample-collection exercise outside the main archaeological site of Lothal. They had hired someone with an excavator to dig a pit near the old, dilapidated guest houses and were carrying out their work inside. However, since the soil in this area is very loose and the fact that water surged from the ground could be the reasons behind the collapse,” the SI told The Indian Express, explaining a possible reason behind the collapse.
Two other members of the team — Associate Professor VN Prabhakar and Senior Research Fellow Shikha Rai — were from the Archaeological Sciences Centre at IIT Gandhinagar.
A post-mortem examination was done on Verma’s body on Wednesday evening at CHC Bagodara, following which her family was informed about her death.
Police also said that no designated archaeologists were at the site when the incident took place and that the locals informed the police about it.
“A team from Vadodara has been sent to the site to inquire into the incident. Whether permission for the excavation was given to them and by whom will be inquired,” Abhijit Ambekar, Superintending Archaeologist at ASI Vadodara Circle said.
The report further said that the ASI has been asked to submit a report on the accident within 24 hours.
As per preliminary reports, it seems the researchers did not get the permission from authorised agencies which is needed to excavate at the site as it is a prohibited area. The methodology employed by the academic team indicates that they may have lacked expertise in excavation at such sites.
