(ANSA) – RABAT, 05 FEB – From Tuesday to Saturday, the weather in Morocco is marked by news about the fate of Rayan, the 5-year-old boy, who fell into a well while playing.
* Tuesday 1 February: The little one plays in front of the house in the village of Tamrout, in the north of the country, about a hundred kilometers from Chefchauen. It’s afternoon. With him there is also his father who then declares: “I was keeping an eye on him but he suddenly disappeared, I didn’t see him anymore and I didn’t understand that he had fallen in there”. A 32-meter flight in the dry well owned by the family. Rescue is triggered, the neighbors arrive, then the whole village, many volunteers are busy.
A skinny neighbor tries to abseil down with a rope. But at a certain point the well narrows and it is only possible to get a mobile phone down with the camera on. He’s alive, he complains, he calls his mother.
* Wednesday 2 February: Civil protection arrives, the group of professional cavers from Chefchauen intervenes. Two of them try to lower themselves: nothing done. It is thought to enlarge the well mouth but the operation is judged too risky. With a hose he gets oxygen, water, something to eat to Rayan: he is tried but vigilant, the volunteers continue to talk to him. We change strategy, the bulldozers arrive: 5 excavators work all night, without stopping to create a chasm parallel to the well and try to reach it with a horizontal corridor.
* Thursday, February 3: 40 hours after the fall, the rescuers open a chasm that reaches 22 meters but proceeds slowly due to the risk of landslides. The story goes around the world and live TV starts. Thousands rush to the scene of the accident, in an unprecedented solidarity contest. Volunteers are hosted in the village, in the houses of Rayan’s neighbors.
* Friday 4 February: After the third night of excavations, the huge crater reaches 30 meters, in parallel with the position of Rayan and the works for the construction of the tunnel begin in a desperate race against time, marked by difficulties: the rocks obstruct the drills, the ground collapses. It was decided to insert pipes to consolidate the possible way out.
Rayan is thirsty, they give him oxygen and food. In all the mosques of the kingdom he prays.
* Saturday 5th February: the most delicate phase arrives, the team of rescuers works with picks to pierce the last boulder. The works at 13.30 suffer a setback, the rock prevents reaching the child. Ambulance and rescue helicopter are ready. Rayan moves and over the radio speaks to his father: he is fine but is breathing hard. Rescuers enter the tunnel protected by a cordon of policemen and at 5.30 pm the engineer Murad Al Jazouli, head of rescue, announces: “Ryan is alive, we will get him out today”. But the hope dies out around 9.30 pm when, just after the child has been extracted from the well, a communiqué of the Royal House of Morocco announces that he is dead “from the injuries sustained in the fall”.
Source: Ansa
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