Rajasthan: 15-day rescue operation goes on for boy to grant mother’s wish | Jaipur News

JAIPUR: In one of the longest rescue operations, which has been going on for the past 15 days, the Pali district administration and armed forces worked round-the-clock to recover the body of a 15-year-old boy who was buried while working in an 80-year-old well at Borendi village in Sojat City on June 21. The well is 185 feet deep and eight feet wide.
The rescue operations are still going on as the body of the boy, Narendra Nayak, has not been recovered so far. Experts had proposed abandoning the mission seven days after the incident, saying that there were no chances of the boy surviving for so long under the debris.

The teenager’s mother, Indira Devi, however, insisted on giving her son a respectful funeral.
This moved the rescue teams to go beyond the mandate and they are still digging the porous well with three grinding machines, five JCBs and a 100-member team to retrieve the body. So far, Rs 1.5 crore has been spent on the mission, excluding the daily expenses of the rescue team.

The accident had occurred when Nayak was filling the cracks, developed 40 feet below the surface of the well, standing on a ‘machan’ (platform) along with another labourer. “A portion of the wall collapsed, leading to sand behind the wall cascading over both of them. They were pushed to the collapsed side of the wall. The other labourer was experienced and held on to a rope and climbed out to safety. But the sand continued to fall on Nayak finally burying him,” said Sojat City DySP Hemant Kumar, who is in charge of the operation.
The rescue work began immediately as Nayak had the best chance of survival in the first 2-3 days. But the operation was hampered as the site had only sand without any hard rocks. The team also had to work 40 feet below the surface. The army engineers were called after local labourers and experts from the district failed in their initial efforts.
The army engineers created ramps for heavy machines to dig, lift the debris and drain the water using two heavy submersible machines. “On the 8th day, we found a slipper belonging to Nayak in mud eight feet below the site of the accident. Thereafter, there were no signs of the victim,” said Kumar.
When the team started thinking about calling the mission off, the family urged the rescue team to find his body to give him a proper cremation. “Nayak was the only son in his family. He was hired by a local man for Rs 500 to cement the fissures in the well. The site was vulnerable and experienced labourers had refused to work in the past. Nayak’s uncle has filed a case against the owner of the well under the relevant sections of child labour,” said village pradhan. TOI tried to contact Nayak’s uncle, Dagla Ram Nayak, but failed to get connected.
“His mother Devi’s condition is not good. She was given a drip some days ago due to the trauma. It was decided that the mission will continue till we find the boy,” said Kumar. An expert said that the mission may have to be stopped if the rain falls and poses a danger to rescue workers.