Team News Riveting
Raipur, June 14
After 105 hours, 10-year-old Rahul Sahu was finally pulled out from the borewell in which he was stuck after accidentally falling on Friday in Chhattisgarh’s Champa-Janjgir district.
Not only Rahul, the rescue teams engaged in the operation finally beat the manifold challenges that came in its way. Neither the boy nor the rescuers lost the patience even as Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel firmly stood behind to save the child at any cost.
Millions of Rahul’s well-wishers across Chhattisgarh and country clung a ray of hope late Tuesday evening when District Collector Jitendra Shukla proudly announced the boy had been spotted by the rescue team. He said Rahul was alive and had responded. And it could be possible only after digging a parallel tunnel to reach upto Rahul, trapped some 60 feet below in the borewell.
During the operation, the teams of Indian Army, NDRF, SDRF and local authorities had to face manifold challenges. Hard rocks created a major obstacle that delayed the building of a parallel tunnel. The mining experts from coal-miner Southern Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL) and other establishments were pressed into the service to use heavy machines and avoid mud sliding.
Though Rahul’s brave act remained undebatable, his mental state and the obstruction had failed the attempts to pull him using a metallic hook attached to a rope—a successful operation conducted just five days ago in Gujarat’s Surendranagar district. The Army personnel securely entangled the hook to the child’s clothes and steadily pulled him up.
The boy has eaten banana and has been active, braving the difficulties in the narrow pit. Meanwhile, the change of weather has also put the authorities in a fix. The rising water level inside the borewell posed a new threat. The local residents have been asked to use the borewells across the village to maintain the level besides efforts to regulate it from the dam.
Meanwhile, heavy machinery has been launched to clear the rock obstacle while digging a parallel tunnel though the team is maintaining maximum caution to avoid mud sliding that could cast its impact on the borewell where Rahul had been stuck. The experts had decided to proceed by inserting an iron pipe into the tunnel.
The fear of snakes and scorpions in the crevices of rocks and stones had also created a new concern. The administration had deployed snake experts and anti-venom was also arranged on the spot.
On Tuesday evening, the jawans of the Indian Army finally launched the final operation and reached upto the boy. At 11.25 pm, the office of Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel tweeted that Rahul expressed happiness after seeing the rescue team and he responded. A snake was spotted in the borewell that panicked the teams. But it did not hurt Rahul.
The CMO tweeted at around midnight that Rahul was successfully taken out from the borewell. He was rushed to the waiting ambulance that raced through the green corridor built by the police to rush the boy to Bilaspur hospital. The condition of the boy is reported to be stable.
