Rescue operations underway for child stuck in the borewell
Large-scale rescue operation continued on Saturday to pull out a two-year-old boy who fell into an over 150-foot-deep borewell in Punjab's Sangrur district.
Authorities are expecting to retrieve the toddler, Fatehvir Singh, by early Sunday morning.
Meanwhile, a technical snag on Sunday hit the massive operation to rescue the boy. The officials said it would take two-three hours to resume the operation. Still digging of 10-12 feet is required to reach the child.
"No digging has been carried out for the past four hours owing to tough geological conditions. Experts are on the job to insert a new digging rig in the well and it will take another two to three hours for the operation to resume," a state government official overseeing the rescue operation said.
A movement in his body was noticed at 5 a.m. on Saturday, almost 40 hours after the incident.
A parallel tunnel is being dug to reach the child, Fatehveer Singh, who is turning two on June 10, and is believed to be stuck at a depth of 110 feet in the borewell that has a nine-inch diameter, officials said.
With Singh remaining unconscious, family members and villagers were offering prayers for the safety of the child, who has been stuck in the borewell for over 55 hours now.
Fatehvir, who is the only child of his parents and would turn three next week, fell into the unused borewell in a field when he was playing near his house around 4.00 pm on Thursday, officials said.
The borewell was covered with a cloth and the boy accidentally stepped onto it. His mother tried to rescue him, but failed. The toddler is stuck around 125-feet deep in the borewell, which is seven inches wide.
A team of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and Army experts, assisted by the police, civil authorities, villagers and volunteers, were carrying out the rescue operation.
A parallel borewell is being dug by installing reinforced cement concrete (RCC) pipes of 36 inches in diameter to retrieve the toddler, officials said.
Till now, rescuers managed to dig around 105-foot-deep parallel borewell by taking out soil manually.
"We have reached around 105-feet deep as of now and another about 20 feet still remains to be dug up. We are expecting if all goes as per schedule, we should be able to retrieve child by 5 am," district Deputy Commissioner Ghanshyam Thori told PTI over the phone.
After the rescuers managed to reach the depth of 125 feet where Singh is stuck, the NDRF will carry out the final phase of the rescue operation to rescue the child.
Thori said the child was unconscious and a team of doctors were on the standby at the site to provide best medical assistance whenever he is taken out of the borewell.
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An ambulance equipped with a ventilator has also been stationed at the site. Earlier, a team of NDRF had tried to pull out the child with the help of a rope, but could not succeed.
Oxygen was being supplied to the child and authorities are monitoring his condition through a camera, officials added. A team of 26 members of the NDRF was engaged in the rescue operation.
The incident has again brought to fore the dangers posed by uncovered borewells, which have turned into death traps for children.
In March, an 18-month-old boy was rescued from a borewell in Haryana's Hisar district, two days after he had fallen into it.
In 2006, a massive operation was launched to rescue five-year-old Prince, who had fallen into a borewell in a village in Kurukshetra. He was pulled out safely nearly 48 hours later.
