(9 Sep 2019) LEAD IN
Gravediggers in Hungary have been competing to win the prize for the best dug grave.
The national competition aims to attract more people to the craft, which is struggling with a workforce shortage.
STORY-LINE:
Digging their way to the top, 18 two-man teams of Hungarian gravediggers displaying their skills.
At a public cemetery in the western city of Szekesfehervar, participants are being judged on their speed and given points for style and the look of their finished grave mounds.
Organiser Edit Vadasz Kiraly, manager of the Szekesfehervar cemetery says the aim of the competition is to help increase respect and recognition for the gravediggers' craft:"There is a shortage in the workforce, we try to make this profession popular with this competition."
All contestants have shovels, rakes, axes and pick axes to dig graves 0.8 metres (2 feet 7 inches) wide, 2 metres (6 feet 6 inches) long and 1.6 metres (5 feet 3 inches) deep as fast and as accurately as possible.
For safety reasons, like a potential collapse of a grave wall, only one member of each team is allowed to work in the grave after reaching a depth of 1 metre (3 feet 3 inches).
"How we trained? For us, it's an everyday job, so there's no need to train," says Laszlo Szucs, a gravedigger from Szeged.
No two teams use the same technique. This is because the competitors pick a plot number from a pot just before the start of the race and the composition of the soil in the plots differs at each level.
It's heavy, exhausting work - and the motivation?
"A cash prize, a trophy and the glory itself," says one digger.
The winning team share a cash prize of 50,000 Hungarian forints - about USD $170.
Today the graves here have all been dug in less than 60 minutes.
After a short rest, the dirt is shovelled back into the graves, which are then topped with a burial mound about the size of a large casket.
This year's winning team is 'Libitina' from Tata.
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