SEVEN people have died in a five-metre deep well after a man attempted to retrieve the equivalent of 75 cents he accidentally dropped into it.

Tuy Chin, 50, had gone to collect water from the well in the Romchek commune in Banteau Srei district, Siem Reap province in Cambodia and saw his cigarette lighter and 3,000 riel (about 75 cents) fall to the well’s bottom.

JANE UPTON: What life in Cambodia is really like

HEROIN SMUGGER: Australian woman jailed for 27 years

Chin decided to go into the well to retrieve his belongings.

“He put the ladder into the well and climbed down to get his lighter. But he could not find the money so he climbed back out without removing the ladder,” Captain Muy Norn, acting police chief of Banteay Srei district, told The Phnom Penh Post.

When he got home, Chin told his teenage daughter that he had lost the money in the well, not thinking that his children would try to retrieve it.

But later that day, Chin’s 11-year-old son climbed down into the well and died due to the low level of oxygen in the concrete well.

His 13-year-old sister then climbed down to find her brother but also died at the bottom.

A 15-year-old sister then followed and she also perished.

When Chin’s neighbours heard what had happened they also climbed down to try and help.

Four neighbours died and a fifth person is in a serious condition in hospital.

According to scientists when oxygen levels fall to between four and six per cent, humans lapse into a coma within 40 seconds, followed by convulsions before respiration ceases. Oxygen levels above ground are normally about 21 per cent.

“The health officials said that the well has less oxygen in the evening, which is what caused those seven people to die. But it has more oxygen in the morning, and that’s why the children’s father was fine when he went down,” Captain Norn said.

Che Chhan, 30, a sister of the three siblings who died in the well, blamed her family’s poverty for the tragedy.

“My 11-year-old brother knew that my father had lost 3,000 riel in the well and he wanted to get it back, without thinking it would be dangerous. And now so many people have died like this.

“I wanted to blame my father, because if he did not tell them about the money, they would not have died. But it’s over now. They would not come back if I blamed my father … but the villagers blame my father and say he was careless.”

The Chin family — they had 13 siblings before the tragedy on Saturday night — will destroy the well, she said.

The seven dead have been named as Che Oun, 11; Che Chea, 13; Chea Ratana, 15; Hay Chandy, 12; Hay Sangda, 22; Peat Poung, 35; and Toy Team, 27.