London, May 14 : Austrian incest dad Josef Fritzl shifted 197 tons of earth by hand while building his cellar, police has revealed.

The 73-year-old sex beast smuggled out the equivalent of 17 lorry loads and fitted and plumbed several rooms without neighbours, tenants or planners realizing.

"Fritzl did it all. It's phenomenal by anyone's standards," The Sun quoted a police source, as saying.

On May 13, cops with dogs trained to find human remains began scouring earth from the excavated rooms in Amstetten, Austria, where Fritzl imprisoned daughter Elisabeth for 24 years.

He says he incinerated their seventh and last child underground when he died at three days. (ANI)