Five-year-old Niwari boy, who fell in a borewell, eventually lost the battle for life on Sunday, despite a relentless rescue operation that lasted over 90 hours. As soon as a team of rescue workers managed to retrieve the child, Prahlad, from the borewell around 3 am on Sunday, he was rushed to a hospital where doctors declared him dead. ‘Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan mourned his death and announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the bereaved family. He also announced that a new borewell will be dug in the agricultural field of the boy's family. Chouhan said and appealed to people to keep their borewells covered.
The child, son of farmer Harikishan Kushwaha, fell into the newly-dug borewell at his father's agriculture field in Saitpura (Barahbujurg) village of Niwari district, located about 350 km from here, on Wednesday morning when labourers were putting a pipe casing in it, police said.
He was stuck at a depth of 60-feet in the 200-feet deep borewell and showed no movement since the past three days. The teams of army, NDRF, SDRF and district administration continued to struggle for over 90 hours to save the boy but in vain.
The teams had dug out the 67 feet of earth parallel to the bore and 24 feet horizontal tunnel to access the boy. The bore was dug tilted and that took the rescue team more time to reach the boy. The teams dug a horizontal tunnel three times. On Saturday evening, a team from Jhansi reached the spot and guided the excavation with the help of magnetic alignment, the team reached the spot where the boy was trapped and brought him out.
As soon as the child was pulled out of the borewell, the team of doctors at the site wrapped him with a blanket and rushed him to hospital, where doctors declared him brought dead The boy’s body was swollen due to water retention.
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