TIRUCHY: Over 58 hours later, the anxious wait in the rescue operations of two-year-old Sujith who is trapped in a borewell, continues as progress remains slow due to the rocky nature of the soil.
After a long wait, a high-power drilling machine, which can drill up to 6ft in one hour, was deployed late on Sunday. Officials claim that they are continuing the drill in the same size, as that space is required to drop rescue officials inside.
J Radhakrishnan, Principal Secretary, Revenue, said, "As the old machine showed slow progress, we have deployed the new machine which is used for oceanic drilling." The new machine can drill thrice as fast as the old one.
As the rescue operations were on, Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam arrived to monitor the operation.
After reviewing the situation, the Deputy CM offered support to Sujith's father, Britto Arogiyaraj, and his mother Kalaimary. Following this, he sat in front of Sujith's house along with Arogiyaraj and monitored the rescue.
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Following the deployment of the new drilling machine, some progress was seen. "We have kept everything for rescue on standby. Once the hole is drilled rescue officials in pairs will go inside and drill a triangular hole for a person to crawl inside and bring Sujith out," said a senior fire and rescue official.
Despite the rescue efforts stretching into the third day, people from various villages and districts continued to throng the rescue spot in the hope of seeing Sujith being brought out alive.
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.