TIRUCHY: Rescue efforts continued for the third day on Sunday to save two-year-old Sujith Wilson who fell into an abandoned borewell in a village in Tamil Nadu's Tiruchirappalli district.
Despite deploying high power drilling machines, there has been no progress.
The toddler had fallen into a 600-feet borewell in front of his house in Nadukkatupatti village on Friday night while playing with cousins.
While Sujith was initially spotted at a depth of 27 feet, he later sunk as low as 70 feet. "Due to the vibration from the extraction of mud from nearby, the boy gradually started going down. By the wee hours he was at around 68 feet," said State Health Minister Dr Vijaya Baskar.
The child slipped further to about 100-feet on Saturday evening.
Rescuers have used ropes and claws to save the boy but they were unsuccessful.
The team has currently deployed a drilling machine to dig a 110-feet-deep hole three meters away from the original borewell.
"We have been drilling from morning, but we have reached only around the 30-feet mark. The rocky nature of the soil is making it extremely difficult to penetrate. To reach the depth of 110-ft, it will take at least 6-7 hours", said an official involved in the rescue.
Drilling machines and workers from ONGC, Neyveli Lignite Corporation and L&T were called in for this purpose.
Firemen from the state fire service have also been deployed to help dig the hole, according to State Health Minister. “We are going to use the tunneling technique used in the Metro Rail projects”, he said.
Meanwhile, officials have confirmed that no special check was done to check the health status of the boy.
"We are continuously providing oxygen. We last heard from him on Saturday morning. No separate check to monitor his condition has been done till now", said a medical officer involved in the rescue operation.