A 2-year-old boy has been trapped in a 360-foot hole — dug for a well — for more than three days, prompting a harrowing rescue mission that has garnered worldwide attention, reports say.
Julen Rosello, whose name has also been spelled “Yulen,” was out with his parents preparing for a picnic on Sunday in Totalan, off of Spain’s southern coast, when he slipped into a borehole after wandering away from the couple,according to the Associated Press.
The boy cried as he plummeted 30 feet down the well, which is reportedly only 15 inches at its widest spot, according to theWashington Post. Since then, all rescue workers and the boy’s parents have heard from the well is silence.
“My wife is broken,” Jose Rosello told reporters on Wednesday,according to NBC News. “We are dead inside. But we hope we have an angel to get my son out of there.”
Malaga Fire brigades/HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock
ANDALUSIAN GOVERNMENT HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock
More than 100 firefighters and emergency workers have been looking for the boy since Sunday. But the hole is too narrow for any adult to enter,according to the AP.
So, rescue teams sent a robotic camera down the well on Monday, but even it was too big for the hole, only making it 229 feet below the surface before being unable to go any further, according to NBC.
However, the device did spot candy the little boy had been carrying, NBC reported. And hairs found in soil extracted from the well match the boy’s DNA, government official Maria Galvez told reporters on Wednesday.
ALVARO CABRERA/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock
Although the rescue mission has stretched to three days, Julen’s parents have not lost hope that he will be found alive.
“It feels like we have been waiting for months,” Jose told reporters on Wednesday, according to the AP. “We are not going to give up.”
“Now they are making progress,” Jose told reporters. “We have a bit more hope.”
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Spanish news outlets have reported that the parents, of Malaga, suffered the loss of another son, 3-year-old Oliver, in 2017, when the boy died as the result of a heart issue, according to the AP and thePost.
Officials have enlisted the help of the Swedish firm that helped in 2010 to rescue 33 Chilean miners who had been trapped underground for months, according to NBC.
The incident comes six months after 12 members of a youth soccer team and their coach, weresafely rescued from a flooded Thailand caveafter being trapped for weeks.
source: people.com
