TIRUCHY: 2-year-old Sujith Wilson, who fell into a well in front of his house Tamil Nadu's Tiruchirappalli district, remains trapped even after 75 hours since the rescue operations began.
Sujith fell into a borewell dug by the family 7 years ago on October 25, Friday, while playing with his cousins. The Fire and Rescue Department's efforts to save the child remains unsuccessful as he slipped further into the hole several times.
When the team arrived at the spot on Friday evening, Sujith was trapped at a depth of 27 feet. They soon started digging a hole next to the borewell.
Though several experts arrived from different parts of Tamil Nadu and joined the rescue mission, nobody could help much as their methods and equipment were designed to lift the boy from the well. Sujith is stuck in a position which makes efforts to lift him up impossible.
"The teams managed to tie his hands thrice, but he slipped each time as the boy was sweating due to humidity," Health Minister C Vijayabaskar said.
The digging of the alternative hole and machines scrapping the borewell structure have reportedly slumped mud on the boy, who further fell to a level of 68 feet.
READ HERE | Why is Sujith rescue mission taking so long?
While he was responding till Saturday morning, no breathing activity or hand movement was noticed after he was engulfed by sand from the top. A thermal robotic machine brought in to check the temperature inside the borewell showed favourable signs inside the hole. However, it couldn't show any update on the boy's health condition.
"The boy was engulfed by an inch of mud after the overnight rescue efforts. We are continuing to monitor the boy and all efforts are being taken to rescue him", added the health minister.
Though a 70-member SDRF-NDRF team arrived at the spot on Saturday afternoon their efforts went in vain as well as the equipment used could only reach a depth of 30 feet.
The officials on Saturday afternoon decided to bring in rig machines to drill the alternative hole and it was deployed in the early hours of Sunday. Workers from ONGC Neyveli and NHAI were roped in to drill the hole. But the rocky nature of the soil hammered the process as the driller, which has the capability to drill 70 feet in 1.5 hours, could not dig much further even. Fearing any more delay would put the child's life in risk, another machine owned by L&T was called in.
The new machine started working on wee hours of Monday but could only drill 6-7 feet in much as 12 hours. A boring machine was later brought in from Karur as borewell drills can do the job faster in comparison to rigs. The machine managed to penetrate up to 65 feet, loosening the soil for the L&T equipment to start working again.
According to the revised plan of the team, a new hole which is more than 10 feet away from Sujith's position needs to be drilled, following which aa horizontal tunnel would be built to crawl and bring Sujith out of the hole. 12 officers from the Fire and Rescue Department, willing to operate 100 ft below the ground, were handpicked for the plan.
The officials on Monday evening claimed to have reached the halfway mark. While rains lashed several parts of Tiruchirappalli throughout the day, works were not interrupted.