Rescue teams have been trying for five days to rescue a child who fell into a well in northern Morocco, in an operation that the country stopped to monitor, hampered by the threat of landslides.
Rayan Awran, 5, has been stuck in an abandoned well since Tuesday (1st), in the hills of the northern province of Chefchaouen. The tunnel is 45 centimeters wide at the top and narrows along its 32 meters of depth.
“Rayan was playing and then disappeared at 2 pm. The whole family mobilized to look for him until we realized that he had fallen into the well,” the sobbing mother told reporters. A relative of the boy said that the family heard a muffled cry and was able to identify the boy in the tunnel with the help of the flashlight and cell phone camera.
The tragedy caused commotion in the country. Live broadcasts of the rescue on TV channels and newspapers fuel expectations about the child’s fate and have brought thousands of onlookers to the scene to follow the search. A Twitter campaign #salvemrayan, in Arabic, remains strong in Morocco, with messages of support. “Resist little Rayan, please resist,” wrote one Moroccan.
Rescuers came up with various strategies to save the boy. At first, the rescue teams thought about entering the pit directly, but they gave up because of the narrow diameter of 45 cm. Later, they thought about widening the hole, but abandoned the idea because of the risk of landslides.
So they began digging another tunnel, parallel to the initial pit, a strategy that advanced and brought rescuers close to the child. “We have two more meters to dig to get to Rayan and we hope to find no rocks,” rescue leader Thamrani Abdelhadi said on Saturday (5). According to him, it is difficult to determine the state of health of the child. A camera dropped into the well shows the boy lying on his side. “We hope to rescue him alive,” he added.
Rescue teams took oxygen and water to the bottom of the well, and it is unclear whether the child has eaten in recent days. Another concern is the cold, since, in winter, the region can reach minimum temperatures close to 0ºC.
Backhoe loaders work 24 hours a day to clear the land and a new tunnel has been dug parallel to the abandoned pit. Since Friday, the most delicate part began, which is to advance the tunnel towards the boy. But the fear is that landslides could put rescuers themselves at risk.
“We pray that this is rescue day,” said the child’s father, as he watched the rescuers’ efforts. “The people who love us spare no effort to save my son.”
Engineers, surveyors and civil defense teams oversee operations. “We are almost there. We have been working hard for three days. We are getting tired, but all the rescue teams are resisting, despite the unforeseen”, said, on Friday, the foreman Abdesalam Makoudi.
A medical team has already been sent to the scene of the accident to “carry out initial examinations and resuscitation interventions on the boy once he has been rescued”, the MAP news agency reported. In addition, a medical helicopter is prepared in case of an emergency.
“Our hearts are with the family and we pray to God that he returns to his family as soon as possible,” Moroccan government spokesman Mustapha Baitas said this week.
The situation is reminiscent of other recent historic rescues. In 2010, 33 miners were rescued after being trapped in a mine in the Atacama Desert in Chile for more than two months. In 2018, in Thailand, 12 teenagers from a soccer team and the club’s coach were trapped for more than two weeks in a cave. All were rescued alive.
Source: Folha
