Rescuers pulled a boy out of a 100-foot well in Morocco, after tunneling toward the 5-year-old in a four-day operation that transfixed the country and anxious observers across the world. But the royal palace said in a statement that the boy had died.
King Mohammed VI called Rayan’s parents to express his condolences, the statement said. The Reuters news agency quoted two government officials as well saying the boy had died.
The emergency team’s extraction of the boy on Saturday night marked the end of a mission that involved teams of first responders and topographical engineers working around the clock with equipment, including bulldozers and backhoes.
An ambulance took the child away amid prayers. The boy’s condition remained unclear for a brief period before local and regional media began reporting the palace’s statement that he had died.
The team had remained hopeful of getting Rayan out alive. “It’s hard to determine his condition . . . but there is great, great hope,” said team member Abdelhadi Tamarani earlier Saturday.
For four days, the team worked to safely retrieve Rayan, who fell into a dry well and became trapped between its narrow walls, in the village of Ighran in Morocco’s northern Chefchaouen province. The dramatic race to save him gripped Morocco and neighboring countries, with crowds gathering to join his parents and broadcasters live-streaming the efforts.
Rayan fell into the well on Tuesday evening. The village contains numerous deep wells that provide irrigation for the cannabis crop that serves as the primary source of income for many in the remote region, the Associated Press reported.
The boy’s parents heard his voice and spotted him down the well with the help of a flashlight, according to Morocco World News. Unable to descend into the well themselves, emergency workers deployed bulldozers and began digging.
The team drilled to create a parallel tunnel down to where the boy was lodged. By Thursday evening, rescuers had managed to dig to a depth of 82 feet, Tamarani told Moroccan TV channel 2M. They dug another 13 feet by Friday morning.
On Friday, the team began digging a horizontal tunnel with the help of topographical engineers, as hundreds of people looked on. They manually chipped away the final stretch, local media said. The motors of heavy machinery stopped, and silence descended on the scene.
The last few feet appeared to be the hardest, as the nerve-racking prospect of a wall collapsing or shaking soil threatened days of delicate work. Rescuers peered over the edge of a pit the team had dug to reach the boy, watching for their colleagues to bring him out.
Messages of support poured in on social media, where the hashtag #SaveRayan became a rallying cry. Regional media covered the rescue operation closely – including in neighboring Algeria, which has a tense relationship with Morocco.
Rescuers used rope to send oxygen down to the child and a camera to monitor him. The camera showed the boy lying on his side facing a wall, making it hard to determine how he was faring as the team inched closer, Tamarani said.
On Saturday evening, the sound of what appeared to be a small landslide triggered worried shouts from the crowd around the pit.
As night fell, cries in Arabic from onlookers of “God is great!” grew more numerous and plaintive. Cheers broke out sporadically as the mission seemed to be nearing its end. But the operation stretched into Saturday night with no news about the boy’s condition. The temperature outside dropped to around 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
Chants, whistles and prayers picked up in the moments before the boy emerged from the well. Floodlights and the glare of rescue workers’ reflective jackets pierced the darkness as the attention of the crowd – and the world – fixated on the mouth of the man-made tunnel on which a nation had pinned its hopes.
An ambulance, a helicopter and medics were at the site to take the boy to a hospital. Rescuers formed a wall around the child as they pulled him from the pit and rushed him into a waiting ambulance, which quickly drove away around 9:30 p.m. local time.
Messages of condolence and support for Rayan’s parents filled social media following news of the boy’s death. The palace’s statement conveyed the king’s appreciation for the authorities, rescue workers and local residents who had endeavored to save the child and for the “strong solidarity and broad sympathy” shown to his family.
(c) 2022, The Washington Post · Claire Parker, Ellen Francis
{Matzav.com}
Should have lowered a bucket with a short but older child to get him the same day.
Very sad story.