Forty hours on, boy still in borewell

BHOPAL - About 40 hours after a six-year-old boy fell into a 400-foot-deep borewell in Madhya Pradesh’s Ratlam district, rescue operations were still on to pull him out, officials said Thursday morning.

Suraj Rathore, who fell into the open and disused borewell while playing in a field in Malvasa village in Ratlam district, around 350 km from here, Tuesday evening, is presumed to be alive, though there has been ro response from him after 9.30 p.m Wednesday.

He was earlier responding to calls by the rescue team.

The boy’s father, Virendra Rathore, had removed the casing of the borewell Monday after it failed to harvest any water.

“Every effort is being made to keep the boy alive. Oxygen is still being pumped into the borewell, hoping to increase the chances of his survival,” an official said.

“He is either unconscious or dead. Doctors are ready to give him aid if we are successful in pulling him out alive. But the chances of survival are very low,” District Collector Mahendra Gyani said.

“The land around the borewell is being dug up in a bid to reach the boy. However, the earth around the pit keeps on caving in,” he said.