The Saudi Civil Defence said it recovered the body of an Indian expatriate who had fallen into a 140-metre-deep well in Medina.

The 35 centimeter-diameter well is located at a rest house near the city's road.

Civil defence teams in Medina tried to rescue the trapped man, but he was later found dead.

“The city's civil defence set up a field command center and sent human teams and rescue equipment to save the man trapped inside the well,” a spokesperson said.

The man was monitored by cameras while oxygen was supplied through the crate as rescuers dug up a parallel well to the one where he was trapped.

The work continued for 27 hours despite the inhospitable terrain, the spokesman added in a statement.

According to unidentified sources, civil defence teams dug 10 metres deep next to the well until they reached a place parallel to where the expatriate's body was and retrieved it. Neither the victim’s age nor his job were revealed.

Neither the cause nor the circumstances of the incident were immediately known.

The Saudi authorities have increased their efforts to backfill abandoned wells following the death in Morocco in 2022 of a five-year-old boy trapped in a well for five days.