HANOI - 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 been confirmed dead, the state media said on Wednesday.

Rescuers spent nearly 100 hours trying to free Thai Ly Hao Nam from the 35m-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,” Mr Doan Tan Buu, deputy chairman of the southern province of Dong Thap, was quoted as saying.

Nam was heard crying for help shortly after he fell into the hollow concrete pile, which has a diameter of 25cm, last Saturday at a bridge construction site in the Mekong delta province where he had been searching with friends for scrap iron.

Mr Buu had said the boy fell on a concrete pillar with a narrow cylinder, and it was possible that he had multiple injuries and had a bad prognosis.

Earlier on Wednesday, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh urged the rescuers and local authorities to mobilise all equipment and forces needed, the government said.

About 100 soldiers and engineering experts were mobilised to try to free the boy. Rescuers had worked to raise the pillar from its 35m-deep hole, softening and removing mud and water to reduce pressure around the pillar. REUTERS, AFP