Indian rescue workers were scrambling on Tuesday to try to save a 10-year-old deaf-mute boy who had been stuck in a well for four days.
The child named Rahul Sahu fell into a very narrow well 24 meters deep on Friday while playing in the backyard of his house in the central state of Chhattisgarh.
Earth-moving machinery and cranes were helping to dig a tunnel next to the wellwith the help of the military and members of India’s disaster response agency.
The child still alive
The child was “responding well” to rescuers monitoring his condition and movements on camera, Janjgir District Police Chief Vijay Agrawal said by phone at the scene. “As the boy cannot speak or hear, we have a bigger challenge ahead,” he added.
An oxygen pipe is supplying Rahul Sahu with fresh air, but a government spokesman said tunneling had been slowed by the presence of very hard rocks.
A similar accident in 2019
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel said he was hopeful to see the child come out of the well alive, saying on Twitter, that the boy had eaten a banana that rescuers were able to get to him.
Wells in Indian farming villages are frequent sites of fatal accidents involving young children. In 2019, in the northern state of Punjab, a two-year-old child died in a well following four days of unsuccessful attempts to save him.
The same year, a one-and-a-half-year-old child was rescued in the neighboring state of Haryana following being trapped for two days.