3 min readBhopalUpdated: Dec 6, 2023 12:20 PM IST
A five-year-old girl who fell into a 25-foot borewell while playing on a farm in Madhya Pradesh’s Rajgarh district died early on Wednesday after being rescued in a nine-hour-long operation.
According to the police, the girl, Mahi, was extracted from the borewell around 2.30 am in the Pipliya Rasoda village in Rajgarh in an unconscious state and sent to Hamidia Hospital in Bhopal where the doctors declared her dead.
Ravi Kumar, the girl’s father, said Mahi was visiting her relatives on Tuesday and was playing around the borewell area when she fell inside it in the evening. Her grandparents alerted the local police who rushed to the spot with rescue teams carrying oxygen cylinders.
Kumar said his relatives waited for the rescue teams and hoped that she would be extracted in time. “She fell around 5 pm. The rescue team came around 6 pm. They were busy digging and she was taken out around 2 am. She was conscious and kept saying ‘papa, papa’ softly. She died on the way to the hospital,” he said.
#WATCH | Madhya Pradesh: The 5-year-old girl who fell into a borewell in Pipliya Rasoda village of Rajgarh district was rescued by SDRF and NDRF teams. https://t.co/Ggujcq0H4L pic.twitter.com/oOeu422tlM
— ANI MP/CG/Rajasthan (@ANI_MP_CG_RJ) December 5, 2023
The police said officials from the local administration and newly appointed MLA Mohan Sharma also reached the spot and helped mount a rescue operation along with an SDRF team from Bhopal.
The rescue teams used heavy machinery to dig 22 feet deep into the ground adjacent to the borewell. The rescuers then made another five-foot tunnel and tried to drill to get access to the trapped girl, the police said.
Dharam Raj Meena, Superintendent of Police, Rajgarh, who was at the spot, said, “The police had sent a video camera and used lights to get visuals of the trapped girl. She could be seen in our camera feed. We saw some movement of her hand and could also hear her cry”.
“The rescue teams provided her with an oxygen supply. She was rescued after nine hours and was alive when we took her out of the borewell,” added Meena.
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Meena said, “There were difficulties in reaching the spot because the incident spot was in the middle of a farm. But thankfully the other agencies reached on time and we had adequate help from the Bhopal administration as well”.
Earlier, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan took to his official X account and said he was in touch with the local administration.
“The teams of SDRF, NDRF and the district administration are trying to get the girl out safely. I am also in constant touch with the local administration. We will leave no stone unturned to bring the girl out safely,” he said.
In July this year, when a toddler slipped into a borewell in Vidisha, the government said those who would not cover their borewells would be punished.
