ATHANI (BELAGAVI DIST): Rescue teams trying to save the trapped six-year-old girl who fell into an abandoned borewell on Saturday in Zunzarwad village of Athani Taluk, here failed to retrieve the girl.
Kaveri Madar had accidentally slipped into an abandoned borewell in her neighouring field when she had gone to collect firewood along with her mother. Several rescue attempts in the last three days did not yield any results but Kaveri is expected to be rescued on Tuesday.
Attempts to reach Kaveri Madar by drilling the area around the abandoned borewell failed as the machines kept hitting boulders and hard rocks. At 9:30pm on Monday, one of the drilling machines developed a technical snag after which rescue attempts were halted for two hours.
Team members said that a spare front chip has to be brought from Athani, 30 km away, to replace the old one. Earlier on Monday, both drilling teams from the National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) and Hatti Gold Fields tried to create a tunnel to reach Kaveri.
However, lack of coordination between the two teams further delayed the rescue. “The difference of opinion among the team members halted operations several times on Monday. The teams failed to judge the right place for drilling and hence kept intercepting boulder after boulder,” said an official at the site.
Meanwhile, Belagavi police are expected to book the owner of the field with the abandoned borewell. Revenue officials were asked to provide the details of the land, including survey number and ownership.
The owner, Shankar Hipparagi, had transferred the 5-acre land to his son’s name, and police will book the duo after the rescue operation ends.