A 10-year-old boy fell into an open sewer manhole filled with icy water while playing with friends outside in Kokshetau. The child was rescued almost immediately, the website infohub.kz reports.
According to the KTK television channel, local residents were shocked above all because this is already the second such incident recently. Two weeks ago, a 4-year-old child fell into a water-filled pit at an unfenced construction site and died.
The utility company Kokshetau Su Arnasy said two crews are currently working across the city, trying to visit and inspect every manhole — of which there are about 15,000 in the city. After the emergency, another manhole cover was closed urgently.
"We haven't managed to get to this manhole yet because our staffing resources are very scarce, we don't have enough. Most importantly, we lack plumbers to service all of this on time. And the manhole was sort of on elevated ground. We didn't think — we were replacing the manholes that are more dangerous and not visible, we tried to prioritize them," said Kazbek Sadvakasov, chief engineer of the enterprise.