Army starts operation to rescue girl from borewell in Madhya Pradesh

The army on Wednesday started the operation to rescue the two-and-a-half-year old girl who fell into a 300-feet deep borewell and has been trapped there for past 30 hours in Madhya Pradesh’s Sehore district, a government officer said. Bhopal chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that efforts are on to rescue the girl.

The girl identified as Shrishti Kumari fell in the borewell on Tuesday while playing on a farmland of Mungawali village of the district. When she fell down, she was at 50 feet. Now, she has slipped further down to 100 feet inside the borewell due to vibration of excavation and drilling.

Providing details of the development, Ashish Tiwari, chief executive officer, district panchayat, Sehore, said that as of now, the army team has reached 35 feet deep.

The army’s rescue team had also tried to rescue the girl by putting rods and rope but they failed. It is a rocky land so the teams are facing difficulty in rescue operation, officers said.

Talking to reporters, CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan said, “The girl named Srishti fell into the borewell around 1 pm on Tuesday and since then efforts were on to rescue her. She was initially stuck at the depth of about 40 feet in the borewell, but due to vibrations caused by the machines engaged in her rescue operation, she has slipped further down to about 100 feet, making the task more difficult.”

“We have called an army team for the rescue operation, while teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and the State Disaster Emergency Response Force (SDERF) have already been working to rescue the girl,” he was reported as saying by news agency PTI.

Sehore superintendent of police Mayank Awasthi said: “Teams have been called from Delhi and Rajasthan to rescue the child. The teams will reach late tonight (Wednesday). We are hoping to complete the rescue operation by tonight (Wednesday) itself.”

Meanwhile, one of the officers familiar with the matter said that the girl is not moving at all. “The oxygen is being supplied to her continuously but she is not responding. We are hoping for the best. The ambulance and doctors are present on the site,” said the officer on anonymity.

Last month, a boy had fallen into a borewell in Vidisha. He was rescued but couldn’t survive. Later, the CM had ordered criminal action against those who leave borewells half dug.