The search for Khayalethu Magadla has gone into its thirteenth day on Saturday, 25 June. Rescuers are hopeful of finally finding his body. Photo: Joburg Water
Search rescuers are confident they are close to finding the body of young Khayalethu Magadla, who’s been missing for two weeks.
The search for Khayalethu Magadla has gone into its thirteenth day on Saturday, 25 June. Rescuers are hopeful of finally finding his body. Photo: Joburg Water
Search rescuers are hopeful of finding the body of Khayalethu Magadla as the operation in Soweto goes into the second week on Saturday.
The six-year-old has been missing since Sunday, 12 June, after slipping and falling into an open manhole in Dlamini Park. He was playing with his friends.
Rescuers pinned their hopes on a specialised robot with a 360-degree view, deploying the floating device with surface and underwater cameras underground using a boat.
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A DeltaScan team, who assembled the technology, views the footage taken at the end of the search operation each day to ascertain what it captured underground. The teams have been moving from one manhole to the next – eight in total – along the pipeline.
Rescuers are exploring the last three sections near the split chamber, located at the Olifantsvlei Cemetery, about 12 kilometres from the first manhole. Johannesburg Emergency Management Services (EMS) spokesperson Robert Mulaudzi said his team is hopeful of a breakthrough in the search for Khayalethu today.
Meanwhile, search and rescue efforts to find the missing Soweto child, Khayalethu went into overdrive as teams prepared to deploy robots underground for the first time on 16 June.
There is no waiting period to report a person missing. Report all missing persons at your nearest police station immediately.
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