When he heard the news, Ilaiah, who ekes out a livelihood as a tailor in nearby Mangalapalli, rushed to the cotton field and broke down when he saw the hole. His four-year-old daughter Girija was playing when she fell into the abandoned bore-well.
Having lost his first wife about two years ago, he married her younger sister and was living in Mangalapalli while both his children by his first wife – Girija (4) and her elder brother Charan – lived with their grandparents at Manchal and studied in a school there itself. On Sunday, the children accompanied their grandmother and others in the family to the cotton field. As the elders were busy picking cotton, the kids were playing when the unfortunate incident took place.
When officials, including the police and 108 ambulances, arrived, among the first steps taken were to clear the area of people eager to assist in whatever manner they could, after which the emergency management technicians of the Emergency Management Research Institute (EMRI) started pumping oxygen into the hole.
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Front-end-loaders and earthmovers were brought in as fast as they could and with technical help from engineers, officials started digging a parallel trench. Progress on digging the trench was tortuously slow, considering the rescuers had to be careful not to dislodge earth in the original bore, aside from the fact that they had to go through rock. As daylight started fading, floodlights were set up.
Among those who were at the spot were Transport Minister P. Mahender Reddy, District Collector N. Sridhar and Joint Collector M.V. Reddy, while Revenue Divisional Officer (Saroornagar) K. Yadagiri Reddy and Mandal Revenue Officer Balaraju monitored the operations.
Ten hours after the mishap, officials had only managed to reach a level of 25 feet. They estimated that the girl was trapped at a depth between 40 and 50 feet.
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