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Fatal fall for boy into 600-foot borewell

By Our Special Correspondent

SALEM April 2. An abandoned borewell pit on an arecanut farm at Chinnamasamudhram in Yethapur near Athur has claimed the life of a four-year-old boy, Ranjit, who accidentally fell into it last evening. After a struggle for over 20 hours, the Fire Service personnel could retrieve only the body this afternoon.

Ranjit accompanied his grandfather, Kaliamurthy (60), to the farm owned by Krishnasamy, a former village administrative officer. As the drought had its toll on the arecanut yield, Mr. Krishnasamy had dug a 600-foot borewell. Its first 35 ft. was of eight inches diameter and the remaining part six inches diameter. As the borewell did not yield any water, the PVC pipes put into it were taken out, and the abandoned pit was covered with three layers of sacks.

When Ranjit unwittingly stepped on the sacks, he fell into the pit. While falling, the boy raised an alarm, and his grandfather brought some persons for rescuing him. As they could not trace him, they immediately called up the Fire Service.

The District Fire Officer, David Vincent, deployed two teams from Athur and Salem. An oxygen cylinder was brought and oxygen pumped into the pit so that the boy could breathe.

After hours of search, the personnel concluded that the boy might have been caught in the narrow portion of the pit. As they could not reach him, they decided to dig a parallel pit, just two feet away from the borewell.

But after 10 ft., they hit upon a rocky terrain, and could not penetrate further. Moreover, there was a brief power shutdown, stalling the rescue operation.

Meanwhile, the Salem District Collector, J. Radhakrishnan, and the Superintendent of Police, Pon Manicka Vel, reached the spot and arranged for an advanced version of the `chain boqlain' from the Highways Department. Even with this equipment, the personnel could dig only up to 17 ft.,

They could not go deeper as it would have necessitated using pellets to blast the earth which

would choke the borewell pit and hence gave up the digging operation.

Later, the Fire Service personnel connected the parallel pit with the borewell and sent down metallic wires attached with hooks.

According to Mr. David Vincent, as the boy did not wear any shirt, the hook could not immediately hold on to the body, and after great difficulty, the body was retrieved.

Mr. David Vincent said when the boy was falling, his head and face would have been covered with the sacks, and that was why he did not stay alive despite the oxygen supply. Only after removing the sacks could the body be reached.

Later, the body was taken to the Athur Government Hospital for postmortem.

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