In the most recent case of a minor's accident, a five-year-old boy in India's Rajasthan state died after falling into a borewell. The child lost his life after being pulled out of the borewell after 15 hours of rescue operations.
The child, Aman, had slipped and fallen into the 40-feet-deep structure in Rajasthan's Sawai Madhopur district. The accident had occurred around 5 pm on Tuesday afternoon, after which the local authorities were informed.
"As soon as we got news, the district administration started efforts to rescue the boy," station in-charge of Malarana Police Station, Bijendra Singh, told IANS. He added that earth-moving machines, as well as other equipment, were brought to the scene, along with a National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) team.
The efforts to rescue the boy finally saw success on Wednesday morning, at around 7.30 am. However, the boy could not make it despite being taken to a hospital. He was declared dead on arrival.
Accidental deaths such as this have become quite common in India, which has an abundance of uncovered borewells and manholes in the ground. The conditions are worsened during the rainy season, as evidenced by the death of an eminent doctor, which occurred by falling into a manhole during the Mumbai rains this year.
Earlier, several children below the age of ten years have fallen victim to borewell deaths. The incidents have occurred in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, etc. Last year, a two-year-old boy had lost his life in the same way in Rajasthan's Sikar district.
Even though the danger of open manholes and borewells has been brought up time and again, the conditions do not seem to be improving. The little boy's untimely death brings this grave issue to the sight of the Indian citizens and authorities again as this death stands out as a futile loss of a soul who could have made his mark in the world.
With inputs from IANS