After a five-year-old fell into a deep well in Morocco, rescuers were slow to get to the child. The Moroccan state news agency MAP reported today that important progress had been made in the last few meters of the rescue operation during the night. Since yesterday evening, helpers have been digging a horizontal tunnel at a depth of around 32 meters in order to reach Rayan via a hole dug parallel to the well. Local media reported that a rock blocked the way to the boy and delayed the work for several hours.
According to MAP, the rescuers are building concrete pipes in the horizontal tunnel to stabilize the earth. In the evening, the helpers would have had to interrupt the rescue operation because of a landslide. The rescuers are now less than two and a half meters away from the boy, the state television 2M reported on its website.
Thousands of onlookers
Rayan fell into an unsecured well near his home in a village regarding 150 kilometers north of the city of Fes on Tuesday followingnoon. Because of the small width, the child might not be retrieved through the well itself. Rescue workers therefore removed earth parallel to the shaft with heavy equipment.
The rescuers also lowered a camera to check the boy’s health, and hoses supplied him with water and oxygen. Up-to-date information as to whether Rayan is still alive was not available today. People around the world are following the rescue operation on social networks. Despite the cold, thousands of onlookers gathered near the scene of the accident.
