Hyderabad: In October 2014 four-year-old Girija slipped into a 300 meter deep bore well in Manchal village in Ranga Reddy district while she was playing in an agricultural field. She was stuck at 46 feet inside the well. A rescue mission led by district and fire service officials, the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and police took three days to retrieve her. By then she had drowned.
One year later, another toddler, B. Rakesh, fell into an uncovered bore well near his house. His body was taken out a day later. Two kids have died in bore wells after Telangana was formed.
Both rescue missions failed as the rescuers took several hours to reach the victim. Police sources say there is no standard operating procedure (SOP) for rescue missions. The robotic technology developed by some private companies is yet to yield results.
Last year, a professor from Tamil Nadu, M. Manikandan, who runs a rescue firm, developed a robot that can pull out kids from bore wells. The robot has human-like arms which allow it to grasp the child from inside the bore well. However, his team failed at a village in Karnataka as they could reach there only hours later.
The slow rescue mission led to the death of victims. Senior police officials said that in both cases rocky terrains delayed attempts to dig a parallel well. “Despite using more than two excavators at both places it was difficult to dig more than 20 feet deep,” a police official said.
Another problem is the confusion at the spot. District and revenue officials, police and fire officials usually respond to such mishaps. But there is confusion on who should lead the mission. Senior officials say the government should prepare an SOP for rescue missions.
In 2012, the fire service saved a boy named A. Guna, who fell into a bore well and got stuck at 22 feet in the Krishnagiri district of TN. The operation was successful as the rescue team reached the spot fast.
Serious head injury killed Rakesh
District officials and police officials decided to pull out the body without digging further. Experts from the National Industrial Security Academy were called in to retrieve the body. “Eight people from NISA came to the spot at about 2 am with special equipment. Two others who run a bore well company also joined the mission. They tied a rope to Rakesh’s legs using robotic arms and pulled him out slowly,” said Jogipet CI V. Nagaiah.
The body was retrieved at around 6 am, 23 hours after Rakesh fell into the well. He was declared dead by doctors. “He sustained a serious injury on the head. The reason for the death can be confirmed only after post-mortem,” said a police official from Medak.
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