Trapped crocodile rescued from the site of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project

Indian Express

17-05-2025

Volunteers rescued a six-foot crocodile trapped under heavy metal plates at the site of the ongoing construction of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail (bullet train) project on Friday.
Hemant Vadhwana, who runs a crocodile rescue group in Vadodara, said that his team received a call on Friday afternoon from workers of the L&T Construction company, which is currently working on the bullet train project in Vadodara city. The workers informed the rescue group that a crocodile had been spotted under the metal plates kept inside a pit at a site near the Vadsar bridge, close to the Vishwamitri River flowing through the area.
Vadhwana said, 'When we rushed to the spot, we saw that the crocodile was stuck in a 25-foot deep pit, which was full of sludge… It was possibly stuck in the pit for a few days after the rains witnessed in Vadodara last week, but it is also likely that it could have been there longer… It went unnoticed as the pit was flooded. As the water receded, the crocodile was spotted by the workers. Although the metal plates have been in the pit for over a year, since the crocodile was healthy and fine, we can infer that it was there for a week to a fortnight.'
Vadhwana said that the rescue was challenging as the crocodile was covered in mud and difficult to remove from under the plates.
He further said, 'It took us three hours to bring it out from under the metal plates. The muck in the pit made it extremely challenging to rescue the crocodile from under the metal plates… we had to take the help of a crane to lift it and remove it from the pit as it was covered in muck and could not be manually removed.'
The crocodile was handed over to officials of the Vadodara social forestry department for rehabilitation and release.