Rescuers try to recover body of Vietnam boy trapped in concrete pillar
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Jan 5 (EFE).- Rescue teams on Thursday continued work to recover the corpse of the 10-year-old boy who had fallen into a 35-meters deep hollow concrete pillar in southern Vietnam, a day after he was declared dead.
The authorities are now trying to pull out the pillar in three pieces, after unsuccessfully trying to pull it up in its entirety, at the construction site for a bridge in the southern Dong Thap province, according to local media outlet VnExpress.
The boy, Thai Ly Hao Nam, fell into the 25cm-wide shaft of the pillar while looking for scrap metal at the site with his friends on New Year’s Eve.
Security cameras captured the moment in which the boy suddenly disappears while walking on the uneven ground.
Initially, the child could be heard crying for help, but he stopped responding after a few hours.
After removing some of the earth surrounding the pile in the hopes of extracting him, the teams abandoned the plan because of the risk that the pile might break, according to VnExpress.
Engineers had been planning several ways to bring out the pillar, which is closed at its lower end, using cranes and specialized equipment.
Some 350 rescuers, including police and firefighters, had been on the scene since Saturday to help rescue the child, pumping oxygen into the hole so that he could breathe and sending him water. EFE
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