Northern Russia is not for the faint of heart, geographically speaking. Harsh temperatures and isolated conditions can turn even the simplest of tasks into a strategical nightmare. Roughly 200km north of the mining town of Vorkuta is the Nyarma-Yaha River, where on the occasion shown in the video below, poor road quality met rising river elevations to create quite the transportation predicament. Fortunately, a bit of mechanical ingenuity would come and save the day.

Vorkuta is a town west of the Ural Mountains that has seen a steady decline in population over the last 30 years as the town’s coal mines began closing down. In fact, Vorkuta was home to nearly a quarter of a million people in the late 1980s, but now only has roughly 96,000 inhabitants. Today, 20-plus people are thankful that they can still call the region home.

The video below captures two backhoes working in tandem as an unorthodox ferry to safely transport people from one side of a washed-out road to the other. To accomplish this, they had to stand suspended in the metal buckets as they were levered over the rushing Nyarma-Yaha below them. This took trust, coordination, and a significant amount of adrenaline to be successful, because halfway across the river they had to actually transfer from one backhoe to the other.

Relief is written all over the faces of the passengers who arrived safely on the dry bank, and it serves as a remarkable reminder of what humans are capable of when survival is at stake. What did you think of this harrowing rescue? Have you seen anything like it? Let us know in the comments below and share this video if it had you glued to the screen.
[video_player]