MP well collapse: 11 dead, 19 rescued; search ends

Eleven bodies were recovered and 19 persons were brought out alive from a well in which several people had fallen while trying to rescue a boy in Madhya Pradesh's Vidisha district, a minister said as the rescue operations ended.

Vidisha (Madhya Pradesh): Eleven bodies were recovered and 19 persons were brought out alive from a well in which several people had fallen while trying to rescue a boy in Madhya Pradesh's Vidisha district, a minister said on late Friday night as the rescue operations ended. The last body retrieved from the well was that of the boy, he said.

The incident took place on Thursday night when the parapet wall of the well in Lal Patar village in the Ganj Basoda area, 50 km from here, gave way. A tractor deployed for the rescue operation skidded into the well with four policemen to make things worse.

A total of eleven bodies were retrieved while 19 people were pulled out alive, state Medical Education Minister Vishwas Sarang told PTI from the spot late at night. The rescue operation was over and all the missing persons were accounted for, Sarang, who is also the district's guardian minister, said.

Read: 15 people fell in a well in MP, rescue operations underway

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had announced that families of the deceased will be given financial assistance of Rs 5 lakh each, while the injured will be provided Rs 50,000 each and free medical treatment. According to local people, the well is around 50 feet deep and had about 20 feet of water.

Later, on Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his condolences to the kin of those who lost their lives and announced an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh for the next of kin who lost their lives in the incident.

Ravi, a teenage boy, fell into the well on Thursday night. While some people climbed down to rescue him, others were standing on the surrounding parapet wall to help them. They were thrown into the water when the wall crashed, eyewitnesses said.

Read: MP: Selfie click turns fatal, woman drowns in waterfall

(PTI)