TOTALÁN, Spain — Efforts to reach a 2-year-old boy who fell into a borehole more than a week ago are nearing their most dangerous stage, an engineer on the rescue team said on Monday.
The toddler, Julen Roselló, fell down the 12-inch-wide shaft on Jan. 13 as his family picnicked on a private estate in Totalán, in the province of Málaga. There have been no signs of life since. The shaft is more than 300 feet deep, and the boy is believed to have fallen at least 220 feet.
Miners have been drilling day and night to create a parallel shaft, hoping they will be able to cut across by Tuesday to find the child.
Work slowed on Sunday after the drill bit hit hard rock 170 feet below the surface. Officials said there was a risk of more collapses as they carved out the horizontal passage.
When the drill reaches 200 feet, the sides will be reinforced and a team of miners will be lowered to dig the last section by hand.
“The most dangerous part, the most delicate part, still remains to be done,” mining engineer Juan Lopez Escobar told Canal Sur. “It is a complicated job where lives will be at risk, but they have practiced that, and they are the best.”
Rescuers found that the borehole was blocked with earth around 220 feet. They believe the child is at that blockage. If he isn’t found there, the team will continue boring, down to 325 feet.
Spanish miners and engineers have been joined by workers from a Swedish firm who helped locate 33 Chilean miners rescued after 69 days underground more than seven years ago.
Children and families have joined candlelight vigils across Spain in support of the missing boy.
The accident occurred as Julen played with other children as his parents sat nearby. The entrance to the shaft — bored illegally in an attempt to find water — had been covered loosely with rocks.
El Pais reported that Julen’s parents lost a child in 2017: Their 3-year-old son died suddenly after suffering a cardiac arrest while walking on a beach.
Totalán, 10 miles northeast of the city of Málaga, is in the hills overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.
(Reporting by Miguel Pereira; writing by Jose Elias Rodriguez and Paul Day, editing by Andrei Khalip and Andrew Heavens)
