BAGALKOT (K’TAKA) : A day after suspending operations to rescue six-year-old Thimmanna Hatti from an open borewell at Sulikeri near here, the district administration on Sunday decided to use air compressor technology to retrieve the body.
Deputy Commissioner P A Meghannavar said a three-member team led by Doddarangaiah, Engineer of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj, Tumkur sub-division, would supervise the operation. Fire brigade personnel would assist him. Meghannavar said arrangements to this effect have been made since Saturday evening.
He said casing pipes would first be lowered and pressed into the soil and then pressure applied to try and lift the body. This technology could not be used if the person is alive. “As the soil down there is very soft, the land may crack. There is a possibility of a landslide too. We have to take proper care during the operation and also while levelling the field,” Meghannavar said.
IT and BT and district incharge minister S R Patil and MLAs H Y Meti and J T Patil are monitoring the situation. “We are going to lift the boy’s body using another technology. Digging of the tunnel was stopped on Saturday,” Patil told reporters at Sulikeri. He said the field, which is now “pond-like”, would be levelled with mud for the boy’s father to restart cultivation. It may take about five to six days, he said and added that members of the National Disaster Response Force and Hutti Gold Mines, which were part of the rescue mission, have returned. “We will bring out the body at any cost,” he said, and hoped that the operation would be wrapped up by Sunday night. Heavy rain had delayed it during the day. The operation would be as per the Advocate General’s direction as legal formalities would have to be fulfilled in order to conduct the postmortem, Patil said.