Rescue workers in Spain are frantically working to free a toddler who fell into a 300-foot deep hole on Saturday.
The parents of 2-year-old Julen Rosello, whose name has also been spelled Yulen, were preparing a picnic on Sunday in Totalán when Julen slipped into a hole after wandering away from the couple.
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The hole, which was built for a well, is only 15 inches at its widest spot, according to The Washington Post. Although Julen cried as he plummeted down the well, all his parents and rescue workers have heard since is silence.
“My wife is broken,” Jose Rosello told reporters on Wednesday after DNA from a few hairs in the soil extracted from the well confirmed the boy was inside the hole, NBC News reports. “We are dead inside. But we hope we have an angel to get my son out of there.”
More than 100 firefighters and emergency responders have been searching for the boy since Sunday, but the hole is too small for any adult to enter. Even a robotic camera sent down was too big, making it just 229 feet below the surface before it was unable to go any further. Although the camera did not spot Julen, it did see candies he had been carrying.
Although the rescue mission has stretched to three days, Julen’s parents are still hopeful he will be found alive.
“It feels like we’ve been waiting for months,” Jose told reporters, according to the Associated Press. “We are not going to give up.”
A mining team has been sent in to help with the rescue effort, with specialists working Wednesday to carefully dig and intersecting tunnel to reach the boy. Government official Maria Galvez said they expect to reach the deepest part of the hole by Friday.
“Now they are making progress,” Jose told reporters. “We have a bit more hope.”
Officials have also reportedly enlisted the help of the Swedish firm that helped to rescue 33 Chilean miners who had been trapped for months in 2010.
Efforts were made to widen the well but hard rock has impeded machinery from getting past the 262-foot mark, Galvez said.
Spanish news outlets have reported that Jose and his wife suffered the loss of another son, 3-year-old Oliver, in 2017 when he died of a heart issue, according to the AP and the Post.
The parents have been waiting at the surface and receiving support from a group of trauma experts and psychologists.
Totalán is a mountainous town in the southern province of Málaga.
