Three days after a boy fell into a 35-meter-deep concrete pipe in southwest Vietnam, emergency services are still trying to save the ten-year-old. It is unclear whether the boy is still alive, Vietnamese media reported on Tuesday. A camera lowered into the pipe showed no sign of life from the child, the authorities said in the afternoon. Helpers continued to try feverishly to soften the earth with special equipment and to create space to use a crane to pull the concrete tube, which was closed at the bottom, out of the ground.

The boy, whose name is given as Nam, fell into the pipe on Saturday at a construction site where a bridge is being built. The pipe is only about 25 centimeters in diameter. Nobody thought that a ten-year-old could be trapped so deep in the tube. According to media reports, the boy initially called for help after his fall. The emergency services had repeatedly pumped oxygen into the depths.

The rescue work was "very difficult" because of the narrowness of the pipe and despite great efforts, the newspaper "Tuoi Tre" quoted a military spokesman as saying. On Tuesday, the emergency services were in the process of drilling deep around the pipe in order to place a steel pipe with a diameter of 1.5 meters around the concrete pipe like a cage - and thus be able to pull it out more easily. The plan is to then use a detector to determine the exact position of the boy before the concrete is cut, the military spokesman said.

The National Search and Rescue Committee said on Tuesday: "After three nights of effort, the rescue of the 10-year-old boy who fell into a 35-meter-deep concrete tube at the Roc Sen Bridge in Dong Thap province is now in the final stages."