A four-year-old boy has died after falling into a 220-foot-deep open borewell in northern India, resulting in a gruelling 21-hour multi-agency rescue operation. The boy, Nirvair Singh, fell into the deep shaft at around 6.30am on Tuesday (June 30) in Haryana’s Ambala district, when he had accompanied his father, Manjit, to deliver breakfast to his grandfather, Karnail Singh, who was working out in the fields.
While the men were busy with work, the child accidentally slipped into an open, abandoned borewell, a borehole used to extract groundwater from an underground aquifer. After unsuccessful attempts to rescue him, they alerted the authorities at around 7am. The four-year-old boy was just 24 hours away from taking his first step into kindergarten on Wednesday, according to reports.
“He noticed an open borewell and began throwing clumps of soil into it. Hearing the sound echoing from deep inside, he leaned over to look into the borewell. Apparently, the edges of the borewell were wet and slippery, and the child is suspected to have slipped into the borewell,” a police officer said, according to The Indian Express.
After authorities were alerted, a major rescue mission was launched under the supervision of Deputy Commissioner Ajay Singh Tomar. He was pulled out by a team from the Army, the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), using hooks and special equipment, from the nine-inch-wide borewell after multiple failed attempts.
The rescuers had planned to dig a parallel shaft on Wednesday if the attempts continued to fail, but the presence of two water tables became a hindrance.
After an exhausting 19-hour digging effort, the boy was brought out of the borewell at around 3.45am and was immediately rushed by ambulance to the Sub-Divisional Civil Hospital in Ambala Cantonment.
Doctor Rishipal, who was on duty, examined the child and declared him dead. The body has been kept in the hospital mortuary and will be returned to the family after the post-mortem examination.
On Tuesday, Ajay Singh Tomar, Deputy Commissioner, Ambala, said they would take legal action against the borewell owner.
“That person is liable to face action for this negligent act of keeping the borewell open. A piece of tile, a brick, a concrete slab, or even a jute bag could have been enough to cover this 9-inch borewell. If the person had taken these precautions and covered the borewell, this situation would not have arisen.”
He also appealed to farmers who have borewells in their fields to keep them covered.
