Hundreds of rescuers in Vietnam are battling to free a boy trapped down a 35-metre-deep hole at a construction site.
Thai Ly Hao Nam, 10, fell into the shaft of a hollow concrete pillar only 25 centimetres wide on Saturday.
The pillar, part of a new bridge in southern Dong Thap province, sank while the boy was looking for scrap iron with friends.
Hundreds of people are working to save the boy, with the military, police, paramedics and roads and bridges specialists involved in the rescue effort.
“We are trying our best. We cannot tell the boy's condition yet,” a rescuer told AFP, identifying himself only as Sau.
Nam was heard crying out for help shortly after he fell into the hole, but rescuers received no response from him on Monday as they lowered a camera down to try to locate his position.
Rescuers have been continuously pumping oxygen into the hole where he is trapped, they told Vietnamese media, and are focus on drilling and softening the surrounding soil to try to pull the pillar up.
Efforts to lift the pile with cranes and excavators had so far failed and the pile has since tilted, complicating rescue efforts and leaving them unsure of the boy's exact position.
On Monday, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh asked federal rescuers to join efforts by local authorities to save the boy.
Authorities say they have no idea how he came to fall so far down.
“I cannot understand how he fell into the hollow concrete pile, which has a diameter of 25cm span only, and was driven 35 metres in to the ground,” Le Hoang Bao, director of Dong Thap province's Department of Transport, told Tuoi Tre News.
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana
Rating: 4.5/5
The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
How will Gen Alpha invest?
Mark Chahwan, co-founder and chief executive of robo-advisory firm Sarwa, forecasts that Generation Alpha (born between 2010 and 2024) will start investing in their teenage years and therefore benefit from compound interest.
“Technology and education should be the main drivers to make this happen, whether it’s investing in a few clicks or their schools/parents stepping up their personal finance education skills,” he adds.
Mr Chahwan says younger generations have a higher capacity to take on risk, but for some their appetite can be more cautious because they are investing for the first time. “Schools still do not teach personal finance and stock market investing, so a lot of the learning journey can feel daunting and intimidating,” he says.
He advises millennials to not always start with an aggressive portfolio even if they can afford to take risks. “We always advise to work your way up to your risk capacity, that way you experience volatility and get used to it. Given the higher risk capacity for the younger generations, stocks are a favourite,” says Mr Chahwan.
Highlighting the role technology has played in encouraging millennials and Gen Z to invest, he says: “They were often excluded, but with lower account minimums ... a customer with $1,000 [Dh3,672] in their account has their money working for them just as hard as the portfolio of a high get-worth individual.”
Jewel of the Expo 2020
252 projectors installed on Al Wasl dome
13.6km of steel used in the structure that makes it equal in length to 16 Burj Khalifas
550 tonnes of moulded steel were raised last year to cap the dome
724,000 cubic metres is the space it encloses
Stands taller than the leaning tower of Pisa
Steel trellis dome is one of the largest single structures on site
The size of 16 tennis courts and weighs as much as 500 elephants
Al Wasl means connection in Arabic
World’s largest 360-degree projection surface
