Rescuers are racing against time to save a ten-year-old boy who fell into a 35-meter-deep hole at a bridge construction site in Vietnam’s Dong Thap province on 1 January.
According to BBC, the incident occurred on New Year’s Eve when Ly Hao Nam was on the lookout for scrap metal and he fell into a hollow concrete pile in southern Dong Thap province.
“I cannot understand how he fell into the hollow concrete pile, which has a diameter of a [25cm, 10-inch] span only, and was driven 35 meters into the ground,” Le Hoang Bao, director of Dong Thap province’s Department of Transport, told Tuoi Tre News, a local newspaper.
Rescuers have been hard at work since then, even pumping oxygen into the 35m-deep support pillar so that he is able to breathe. Although he was heard crying for help soon after the accident, the 10-year-old has been unresponsive since Monday.
“We are trying our best. We cannot tell the boy’s condition yet,” one rescuer told AFP at the bridge construction site in the Mekong delta.
Cranes and excavators were also brought in to help in rescue efforts as the parents of the boy looked on anxiously. But the boy’s current position couldn’t be determined yet.
Rescuers also tried to soften the soil around the pillar to extract it but it made it tilt, further complicating the ongoing operations.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh urged federal rescue workers on Monday to assist local authorities to save the boy.
