accident
Child in Vietnam stuck in deep concrete pipe
Rescuers in south-west Vietnam are still trying to rescue 10-year-old Nam from a concrete pipe 35 meters deep. photo
© –/Dong Thap’s People Committee/dpa
For days, rescue workers have been trying to rescue a little boy from a concrete pipe 35 meters below the surface. In the meantime, it is no longer clear whether the ten-year-old is still alive.
Rescue work continues four days after a 10-year-old boy fell into a 35-meter-deep concrete pipe in Vietnam. The emergency services have to deal with new problems because of the difficult terrain and the extremely complicated circumstances, said Doan Tan Buu, a spokesman for the provincial administration of Dong Thap, on Wednesday of the German Press Agency.
“We believe rescuers will pull the concrete pillar out of the ground today, but we don’t expect good news for the boy.” A camera previously lowered into the pipe had shown no sign of life from the child.
One of the problems is the amount of mud surrounding the pipe, Buu said. Further drilling work is required. The rescuers tried everything to pull the pipe out of the ground in the late afternoon. “We hope for a miracle,” said the community’s Facebook page in southwest Vietnam.
Little Nam fell into the pipe on the site of a construction site for a new bridge on Saturday. It is only about 25 centimeters in diameter. Authorities said no one thought a ten-year-old could be trapped so deep in the tube. The military also participated in the rescue work. With special equipment, the rescuers continued to try to loosen the earth around the pipe so that it could be pulled up with a crane.