A pensioner has died after falling into a 40-metre hole he dug under his kitchen floor after dreaming gold was buried underneath.
Joao Pimenta da Silva, 71, plunged into the shaft he dug after losing his balance on a rocking chair at his home in Brazil.
Neighbors said the retiree had become obsessed with the idea that gold was buried in the area beneath the estate he was trying to reach in the municipality of Ipatinga in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais.
Arnaldo da Silva told local media: 'Joao had been digging the hole for more than a year and had hired many people to do the digging.
'He started by paying 70 Brazilian reais (£11.30) a day when the hole was still shallow, but the deeper he went, the more the costs increased.
A pensioner has died after falling into a 40-metre hole he dug under his kitchen floor after dreaming gold was buried beneath it (pictured)
Joao Pimenta da Silva, 71, plunged into the shaft he dug after losing his balance on a rocking chair at his home in Brazil
'He ended up paying around £80 to everyone who went into the hole and helped remove the earth. He had hit a large rock that emerged and was difficult to remove and there were rumors that he was trying to get dynamite.”
The neighbor said Joao claimed he was told by a “spirit” in a dream that there was gold under the rock beneath his kitchen floor and that he tried to warn him of the dangers of his mission but was ignored.
The tragedy that led to the gold miner's death occurred on January 5.
Firefighters confirmed that they received a call to a house in the Betania neighborhood around 1:30 PM that day, after the owner suffered a fall of about 40 meters but could do nothing to save his life.
Extraordinary photographs of the hole, which was about 90 centimeters in diameter and went down the equivalent of about twelve stories, have been published in the Brazilian press.
According to local reports, the victim reportedly slipped and fell to his death from a wooden platform near the top of the hole as he tried to exit after work to remove water and mud.
Other reports said the platform was an access seat from a child's swing he used to enter the hole. At the time he was removing water and soil.
A friend – Antonio Wilson Costa – with whom he worked could not save him. He was the one who witnessed the fall and said Da Silva's chair came loose.
His body was removed by emergency services. He appeared to have suffered head injuries, broken legs and other fractures.
“After (the) dream, the elderly man started digging a hole with a diameter of approximately 90 centimeters and at least 40 meters deep,” the fire brigade said in a statement.
“There was no information on how long the entire process took or how the complex excavation was organised,” they noted.
The 2nd sergeant of the Minas Gerais Fire Department, Luís Filipe de Miranda, told the Estado newspaper that Silva likely had experience in excavations and would have had professional help.
He said that although the equipment used was 'archaic' and 'homemade', the vertical tunnel cut was 'perfect'.
“This tunnel looks like something extraterrestrial, with the perfection with which he dug it: a very small diameter, a very perfect cylinder, 40 meters deep,” Miranda said.
'We found compressors, specific hammer drills' that were used when digging tunnels.
The neighbor said Joao (pictured) claimed he was told in a dream by a 'spirit' that there was gold under the rock beneath his kitchen floor and that he tried to warn him of the dangers of his mission but was ignored .
He also pointed out that the hole he found had been completely closed.
“It's a science to get down. Very complicated, but he had experience. We don't know what he has done in this regard,” he said.
On the other hand, Miranda highlighted serious safety concerns.
'You can see from the images that it is all very archaic, homemade, artificial. There is no fixed supporting structure. His supports for climbing up have no screws in the ground. He descended on a kind of child's seesaw, without a seatbelt, without safety'.
