A 10-year-old Vietnamese boy who fell into the narrow open shaft of a concrete pile at a construction site on New Year's Eve has died.
Rescuers spent nearly 100 hours trying to free Ly Hao Nam from the 35-metre-long support pillar driven into the ground, but without success, online newspaper VnExpress cited a local government official as saying.
"The authorities have determined that the victim has died and are trying to recover his body for the funeral," deputy chairman of the southern province of Dong Thap, Doan Tan Buu, was quoted as saying.
Nam was heard crying for help shortly after he fell into the hollow concrete pile, which has a diameter of 25 centimetres, on Saturday at a bridge construction site in the Mekong delta province where he had been searching with friends for scrap iron.
Earlier on Wednesday, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh had urged the rescuers and local authorities to mobilise all equipment and forces needed, the government said.
Efforts to lift the pile with cranes and excavators failed and rescuers were unable to determine the boy's position, media reported.
Rescuers pumped oxygen into the pile and have softened the soil around it but the pile tilted slightly, complicating extraction efforts.
