Faridabad, Sept 28: A three-year-old girl tragically passed away early Monday morning after being extracted from an open 200-foot-deep borewell in Faridabad’s Sihi village following a exhaustive 10-hour multi-agency rescue operation.
The child, identified as Neha, was playing with other children on Sunday evening near an abandoned municipal borewell when she reportedly slipped from a nearby tractor and fell into the shaft. Emergency response units, including the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), Haryana Police, Municipal Corporation, and local health teams, mounted a swift joint operation after receiving the alarm around 8:00 PM. NDRF personnel arrived from Ghaziabad to reinforce local officials already working at the site.
Rescue teams encountered severe complications during the night-long effort. SDRF officials maintained that the disused borewell, abandoned for roughly 15 years, contained water at a depth of 125 feet, severely hindering extraction attempts. Furthermore, specialized equipment proved ineffective inside the narrow shaft, prompting rescuers to fabricate a custom retrieval tool on-site with assistance from a local automotive mechanic. Rescuers eventually reached the child, who was trapped upside down near the 200-foot mark, successfully pulling her out by 4:00 AM.
Medical personnel at a nearby private hospital declared the child deceased upon arrival. Police authorities affirmed that the body remains in the mortuary pending a post-mortem examination to establish the precise cause of death.
Local residents in Sector 8 voiced concern regarding civic oversight, asserting that securing the disused shaft would have averted the incident. The child’s father, Ramdin, maintained that the municipal lid covering the structure had been removed only days prior to the accident.
Addressing the situation, Sanjeev Kumar, Executive Engineer of the Municipal Corporation of Faridabad, stated that civic records show the borewell was sealed with a lid approximately 15 years ago, adding that no official notifications regarding its removal had reached the department. Officials declared that a formal investigation will take place, and appropriate regulatory action will follow should negligence be determined.
