On Monday, rescuers in Vietnam were desperately attempting to free a 10-year-old boy who had fallen into the narrow open shaft of a concrete pile at a construction site on New Year’s Eve.
Ly Hao Nam was heard crying for help shortly after falling into the pile on Saturday morning, but he did not respond when rescuers lowered a camera down to try to locate his position in the 115-foot-long support pillar on Monday.
The tragedy occurred at a bridge construction site in the Mekong delta province, where the boy had been looking for scrap iron with friends.
“I cannot understand how he fell into the hollow concrete pile,” which has a diameter of less than 10 inches and was driven 115 feet into the ground, said Le Hoang Bao, director of Dong Thap province’s Department of Transport, to Tuoi Tre News.
Attempts to lift the pile with cranes and excavators have so far failed, and rescuers have been unable to determine the boy’s location, according to media reports.
Rescuers have pumped oxygen into the pile and softened the soil around it, but the pile has tilted slightly, making extraction efforts more difficult.
