A four-year-old boy remained untraced after reportedly falling into a Delhi Jal Board sewer manhole in west Delhi’s Nangli Vihar area on Tuesday, with a multi-agency rescue operation continuing for more than 10 hours, according to Navbharat Times. The incident occurred near Das Garden Colony in the Ranhola police station area.
The child, identified by his family as Imran, was playing near a park when he went towards a spot beside a drain and a boundary wall to use the bathroom, his father Khursheed Alam told the publication. A fibre sheet had been placed over the sewer opening. The sheet reportedly broke when the child sat on it, causing him to fall into the manhole.
The child’s mother, Shahjahan, raised an alarm after he fell, following which local residents gathered at the site. The control room was informed at 3:28 pm on Tuesday, the report said. Delhi Fire Service and Delhi Police teams reached the location, followed by personnel from the National Disaster Response Force, the Delhi Disaster Management Authority and other agencies.
Fire service teams were also sent from stations in Janakpuri, Dwarka, Najafgarh, Moti Nagar and Jawalapuri. A Border Security Force team was reported to be assisting the rescue operation. The deployment reflects the difficulty of accessing a narrow underground sewer while searching for a child in a deep, water-filled structure.
The manhole was estimated to be about 50 feet deep, with water present at the bottom. Its opening was reported to be only around two to two-and-a-half feet wide. These conditions have constrained the rescue effort, with teams working to locate the child inside the sewer network. The report said that no information about the child’s whereabouts had emerged by late Tuesday night.
The incident has also drawn attention to the immediate safety risks created when openings in public utility networks are covered with temporary or damaged materials. In this case, the fibre sheet reportedly placed over the sewer gave way under the child’s weight. The supplied report did not state who had placed the sheet, when it was installed or whether the manhole had previously been inspected by the Delhi Jal Board.
Rescue teams from the fire service, police, NDRF, DDMA and other agencies remained engaged in the operation at the time of publication. The child’s family continued to wait at the site as the agencies searched the sewer for him.
