The rescue work was intensified on Thursday evening around the well in a village in the north of the country, as reported by the AFP news agency. The MAP news agency reported that the emergency services have already dug a shaft “more than 27 meters” deep.
It is hoped “to get to 32 meters in the next few hours before a horizontal connection of 3 meters is dug between the hole and the well to recover the child.” A medical team was sent to “perform initial examinations and resuscitation measures on the child as soon as it is rescued”. A helicopter is ready to fly the child to a nearby hospital.
Little Rayan accidentally fell into the narrow, dried-up well near the family home in a village near the town of Bab Berred in Chefchaouen province on Tuesday. The accident happened “in a moment of inattention”, Rayan’s father described in local media. He just wanted to repair the well.
The rescue teams, who have been deployed for more than two days, could not descend directly into the well because “its diameter is no more than 45 centimeters,” rescue operation leader Abdelhabi Temrani told state TV channel Al Oula. According to MAP, the rescue workers were able to bring “water and oxygen to Rayan via hoses.”
The rescuers had also considered “increasing the diameter of the well, but that was not possible due to the nature of the soil, which could lead to a landslide,” said government spokesman Mustapha Baitas. So the only solution was to dig around the well.
The incident, which caused a great deal of sympathy on the Internet throughout North Africa, is reminiscent of the fate of two-year-old Julen in Spain in 2019. At that time, the boy had fallen 100 meters deep into a borehole with a diameter of only 25 centimeters. However, his body was not discovered until 13 days later.
Source: Nachrichten
