Toddler stuck in borewell for 12 hours rescued in AP

A toddler was rescued from a 20-foot-deep borewell in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district by a team of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel, policemen and administrative officials in the wee hours of Wednesday, nearly 12 hours after the operation was launched on Tuesday afternoon.

The rescue team lifted twoyear-old Chandrasekhar out of the borewell around 2.45 am, even as hundreds of people – including local minister Pattipati Pulla Rao, Guntur collector Kona Sasidhar and rural superintendent of police Venkatappa Naidu – looked on with relief.

The authorities handed the boy over to his parents, smalltime farmers Mallika and Anusha, after administering first aid at a government ambulance stationed at the spot. Doctors pronounced the boy, who was said to be smiling upon being drawn out of the well, as healthy.

Chandrasekhar tumbled into the borewell at Ummidivaram village around 3 pm on Tuesday, while Anusha was away fetching fodder for their cattle from a nearby field. Police and district officials launched rescue operations immediately after they were informed. NDRF personnel, who reached the spot soon afterwards, began pumping oxygen into the borewell while digging a parallel crater.

Rescue workers reportedly inserted iron plates under the earth to prevent Chandrasekhar from falling deeper into the borewell as the parallel crater was being dug. Though rain hampered rescue operations at night, the team continued work and the boy was retrieved.

HT PHOTO Twoyearold Chandrasekhar (right) was playing near a cattle shed at Ummadivaram village when he accidentally fell into the borewell around 3pm on Tuesday.