ATHANI (BELAGAVI DIST): A six-year-old girl in Zunzarwad village of Athani taluk has been trapped in a dry, abandoned borewell in a field on Saturday evening. The girl Kaveri Madar is believed to be stuck at a depth of 30-50 feet in the 400ft deep borewell.
Officials of the Athani taluk administration rushed to the spot and are monitoring the situation. Police officials at the spot said they were supplying oxygen into the borewell through a pipe. According to district SP Ravikanthe Gowda, they have sought the help of the National Disaster Relief Force.
National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams from Pune and Hyderabad have headed to the village to aid in the rescue operations.
The incident happened on Saturday noon when the girl along with her mother Savita had gone to the field to collect firewood for cooking.
Kaveri slipped and fell into the uncovered borewell. The girl’s family work as labourers on the agricultural field that belongs to Shankar Hipparagi. He had removed the pipes from the well and used them for a new borewell that was drilled, leaving the old one uncovered.
JCBs have begun drilling a parallel hole about 10 metres away from the borewell. Till around 1am on Sunday, the earth movers had reach a depth of over 22 feet, but work was slowed by hard rocks beneath. The district administration has planned to lower down a video camera attached with a mike to know the latest position of the girl.
Athani MLA Laxman Savadi and all the top brass are camping at the spot.
In 2014, in a similar incident, a six-year-old boy was trapped at a depth of 160 feet in an abandoned borewell at a farm in Sulikeri village in Bagalkot. A massive rescue operation that lasted almost a week was called off after the boy was confirmed dead.