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After a gruelling 18-hour-long struggle the rescue team managed to take out three-year-old R.Madhumitha from the depths of a discarded borewell at about 3 a.m. on Sunday. The borewell sunk in her father M.Ramachandran’s farm at Pallagacheri in Velananthal panchayat of Thiagadurgam block , happened to be unproductive and hence, its mouth was kept covered with empty polythene sacks.

Madhumitha who playfully stepped onto the sack cloths at 8 a.m. on Saturday got sucked into the borewell. After she was pulled out of the borewell she was rushed to the Kallakurichi government hospital where after attending on her for 40 minutes the doctors declared her dead.

Madhumitha happened to be the only child of Mr. Ramachandran. He sank the borewell to the depth of 500 ft to get water for irrigation but it failed him. The size of the initial 30 ft depth is of 8-inch diameter and the remaining length is of 6-inch diameter.

She got struck within the 30-ft depth. Since she fell into the hole in an odd angle efforts to draw her out of it could not succeed. Hence, the police and fire service personnel, along with the district administration mobilised five poqlain machines to dig a parallel pit to pull her out of the borewell.

But as the soil was so hard they could not cut through it. Meanwhile, an expert team from the TVS Community College, Madurai, arrived at the spot along with their improvised gadgets named “borewell robots.”

Since the team’s endeavour did not yield the desired results, the police and fire service personnel resumed their efforts to drill a hole at the spot slightly above where the girl got stuck. With a great deal of efforts she was brought out, but in an unconscious condition.

A medical team along with two ambulances remained at the place throughout the rescue operation. The incident plunged the entire Velananthal panchayat and also the nearby places in grief. Had the abandoned borewell been kept covered properly such a tragic incident could have been averted, villagers opined.