Rescuers tried to get oxygen and water through pipes and bottles down to Rayan, without certainty that he could use them, according to AFP reporters.
Par AFP
EIn a race against time, Moroccan rescue workers are making very slow progress on Saturday to try to save little Rayan, a five-year-old child who fell into a deep well five days ago, whom they hope to find alive.
The boy “appears lying on his side, from behind” in the images of an inspection camera integrated into the cramped well where he fell on Tuesday, but it is “impossible to say that he is alive with certainty”, has rescue operation manager Abdelhadi Tamrani told AFP.
The chief rescuer, however, told other media that he had “great hopes” of extracting him alive from this narrow and 32-meter deep hole, dug near the family residence in Ighrane, not far from the village of Bab Berred, in the province of Chefchaouen.
Rescuers tried to get oxygen and water through pipes and bottles down to Rayan, without certainty that he could use them, according to AFP reporters.
The hand drilling of a horizontal tunnel of a few meters is progressing at a brisk pace in this poor locality in northern Morocco. “We have about two meters left to complete the excavation of the horizontal tunnel, hoping not to face rocks again”, detailed Mr. Tamrani.
In the early morning, a major obstacle slowed down the operations: the rescuers fought with a large rock, blocking their way. According to local authorities, engineering teams got rid of it after three hours using small electrical equipment to avoid cracks and cave-ins.
This risk hangs over the rescue operation due to the nature of the ground at the scene of the incident, some areas being rocky, others very sandy.
Thousands of sympathizers have come in recent days, some from afar, as a sign of solidarity, and are camping on the spot despite the freezing cold of this mountainous area of the Rif, at an altitude of nearly 700 meters.
Metal barriers have been in place since Friday to contain the crowd and prevent it from hampering the work of rescuers.
Reminder of the incident
The child who was playing near his house disappeared on Tuesday around 2:00 p.m. (1:00 p.m. GMT): “The whole family mobilized to look for him until we learned that he had fallen into the well”, said to the local press the mother of the child, her eyes filled with tears.
A team is ready to rescue the child as soon as he is released, local authorities told AFP. A medical helicopter is on stand-by.
“Our hearts are with the family and we pray to God that he finds his loved ones as soon as possible”, assured the government spokesman, Mustapha Baitas, urging the crowd “to let the rescuers work to save this child”.
This accident echoes a tragedy that occurred in early 2019 in Andalusia (Spain), where a two-year-old child died after falling into a well 25 centimeters in diameter and more than 100 meters deep.
The body of little Julen had been found after 13 days of research on an exceptional scale.
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