New Delhi (AP) - Road construction workers in central India killed a man when they accidentally buried him in a pit while repairing a road, police said Tuesday.

The road repair crew failed to notice that a drunken man had fallen into a crater on the side of the road in Sleemanabad, a village in Madhya Pradesh state.

Working in the evening, the workers dumped gravel and an asphalt mixture into the pit, burying the man, before using a large roller to smoothen the road, said Constable Dhruvsingh Thakur.

The death was discovered when villagers noticed that part of the man’s hand was visible in the road and police dug out his body on Monday.

The man, in his mid-30s, had gone to a village fair and later stopped at a liquor store. He was heading home when he fell into the pit and lost consciousness, his neighbors told Thakur.

Two workers of the road repair crew were arrested and have been charged with homicide.

Poorly maintained roads with large potholes are common in India.