AFP extension
ANNOUNCEMENTS•
The 10-year-old boy who has been trapped in a concrete foundation shaft in Vietnam since New Year’s Eve has been pronounced dead. The local media reported it.
The boy fell against a pole on a construction site in the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam on Saturday evening. Rescuers have tried in vain to free the boy in recent days.
A representative of Dong Thap province says there is no longer any hope that the child will be taken alive from the well. “Authorities have determined that the victim is dead and are trying to free the body so it can be buried.”
The boy was looking for scrap iron in the construction site on New Year’s Eve when he fell down the pipe. It goes 35 meters into the ground and is only 25 centimeters in diameter. The provincial government has deployed hundreds of officers for the rescue operation. They heard the boy calling for help shortly after the fall, but then he fell silent.
Attempts to lift the pile with cranes and excavators failed. It is unclear how rescuers intend to extract the boy’s body from the well.
Pictures from the rescue:
Rescuers try to pull a 10-year-old boy out of the pile
