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BFF-27
SPAIN-ACCIDENT-CHILD
Miners close in on Spanish toddler trapped in a well
TOTALAN, Spain, Jan 25, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Miners closed in Friday on a
toddler who fell in a well on January 13 in southern Spain, keeping the
country on tenterhooks with a rescue operation fraught with glitches.
Rescuers have been working round-the-clock under the media glare to try and
reach two-year-old Julen Rosello, whose parents say fell down a narrow shaft
as he was playing in Totalan, a town near Malaga.
There has been no sign of life from the boy but rescuers think they know
where he is inside the illegal well which is more than 100 metres (350 feet)
deep.
On Friday, miners were deep underground in a specially-excavated shaft
parallel to the well, painstakingly digging a four-metre tunnel to join both
channels and hopefully reach Julen with the help of small, controlled
explosions.
Jorge Martin, a spokesman for the Civil Guard police force, told reporters
they were also having to extract “the contaminated air and gases that are
underground.”
But with “complex terrain conditions,” according to a government
spokeswoman in Malaga, progress was slow and workers had only managed to dig
1.5 metres in just over 12 hours.
The unprecedented rescue operation has been fraught with complications that
have caused delay upon delay as Julen’s distraught parents and relatives
stand by.
Explosives experts and elite miners are just some of those taking part in
the operation, with the hope Julen is still alive after all this time.
Rescuers have not been able to get to Julen via the well he fell down
because it is blocked by a layer of earth, sand and stones believed to have
been dislodged when he tumbled into the shaft.
They decided to dig a vertical shaft parallel to the well, 60 metres deep,
which was finished late on Monday.
The idea was to secure the shaft with tubes then take elite miners down in
a specially made cage to start digging a horizontal tunnel to the site where
they believe the child is.
But the tubes designed to secure the shaft didn’t fit, so they had to widen
it, which delayed the operation still further.
Eventually, they succeeded and the miners are now busy digging the
horizontal tunnel, taking turns in teams of two.
BSS/AFP/RY/1825 hrs