One man dead, another injured after being trapped under tonnes of landfill at Eastern Creek

One man is dead and another seriously injured after being buried under tonnes of rubbish at a Western Sydney tip on Monday afternoon. Emergency crews and fellow colleagues had to use their bare hands to sift through the rubbish to get to them.

One man is dead and another injured after they were trapped by tonnes of rubbish.

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One man is dead and another seriously injured after being buried under tonnes of rubbish at a Western Sydney tip on Monday afternoon.

It is believed a large bulldozer was involved when tonnes of garbage were heaped on top of the two workers at the Dial-a-Dump landfill at Eastern Creek at 12.45pm.

One of the men, aged in his 30s, was heard screaming for help beneath the pile of waste, which included washing machines, fridges and mattresses.

Police and ambulance crews on the scene attend to the injured man.

Crews were forced to comb through large amounts of rubbish to get to the men.

Firefighters, police and the men’s fellow workers used their bare hands to sift through the debris in a desperate bid to save the pair buried among the 2000 tonne pile of rubbish.

One of the men was pulled out after 20 minutes and was immediately treated by paramedics. His colleague was not as lucky.

Ten minutes later the second man, aged in his 40s, was extricated after being trapped under two metres of rubbish.

Despite the best efforts of paramedics he died. The injured man was taken to Westmead Hospital where he was treated for a suspected fractured shoulder and broken ribs.

He was in a stable condition on Monday night.

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NSW Fire and Rescue Inspector Kernin Lambert said it was a chaotic scene.

“Both of the workers were quite severely trapped. It was quite a desperate situation,” he said.

“It was desperate fight for life. We had to work very, very rapidly, very, very quickly at considerable risk to the rescue crews.

“Firefighters, police paramedics and people on the site were working quite a physically demanding task trying to remove the material, pulling the material away, going deeper and deeper. He had tonnes of material on top of him.”

An aerial view of the scene. Picture: Seven News

The driver of the large front-end loader bulldozer was taken to hospital for mandatory drug and alcohol testing before he was interviewed by police.

NSW Ambulance acting inspector Michael Magyary said the rescue was conducted in “extremely unstable surroundings”.

“It is always sad to be involved in a job where somebody has lost their life at work,” he said.

The giant rubbish facility is a former quarry and when it was launched in 2011 the owner, Ian Malouf, said there would be 12.5 million cubic metres of waste filled there in the next 20 years.

SafeWork NSW is investigating the incident.