Crews Drilling in Effort to Save Boy Trapped in Well

Rescuers in Spain plan to dig tunnels toward a 2-year-old boy who has been trapped in a deep, narrow well for nearly a week, Reuters reports, saying, “The whole nation is holding its breath for the outcome.” On Friday, trucks carrying equipment and pipes arrived at the scene on a private estate in the southern city of Totalan. Julen Rosello fell into the well, which is more than 300 feet deep and just 10 inches wide, on Sunday during a family picnic, per the Guardian. He has not been heard from since—and a robotic camera sent into the hole earlier this week wasn’t able to get down far enough to see the boy—but the family and community are hoping he is still alive.

“It’s as if Julen were everyone’s son,” an engineer adding in the rescue tells Reuters. Rescuers, including some who aided in the rescue of 33 trapped miners in Chile in 2010, have started digging vertical and horizontal tunnels next to the borehole the boy fell down, Fox reports. Crews were focusing on the vertical tunnel, per the Daily Express, out of concerns that work the horizontal one could cause a landslide. Efforts to shore up the hole that Julen fell into are also ongoing. The tunnel digging effort could take up to a few days, according to reports. (More rescue stories.)