Rescuers failed to retrieve alive the six-year-old boy who had fallen into a 35-feet pit at Mannady in North Chennai. The unceasing round-the-clock efforts of the fire services, police personnel, construction engineers of two private firms and local public to rescue the boy proved to be in vain, much to their anguish and that of the boy, Tamizmani's parents, especially his mother.

The police team and the fire services personnel were especially crestfallen, as there was an ember of life on Saturday, when they had inserted a miniature camera and saw some movements.
The ordeal began on Thursday when the boy, returning from his school, accidentally fell into the nearly one-foot diameter borewell pit dug for a newly constructed building.
He shouted for help. Within half-an-hour, fire services and police personnel rushed to the spot, in a bid to save the child.

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Initially, the child was in the range of about 10 feet. This spurred the rescuers, who thought that by sending in a rope he could be rescued. But the drama was not to be short lived.

After suffering a setback in digging a parallel well to reach the boy on Saturday, a new tunnel was dug two ft away from the one in which the boy had fallen.
The new well was reinforced with horizontal steel rings to prevent the loose soil from falling. Joint commissioner of Police (north) C Sylendra Babu also joined the rescue operations along with the fire service personnel and local residents. However, the efforts proved futile.

A team of doctors, who were present at the site to provide emergency medical help to the boy if he was rescued alive, said that several factors, including the position in which he fell, could have caused the death. The city police have arrested the manager of the building in front of which the boy fell into a pit.
However, the building owner and the contractor who had dug up the pit are absconding.
Bureau Report