A 12-year-old boy fell into a deep sewer while playing in Ghaziabad on Tuesday, triggering a massive search by emergency workers and Army personnel who were so far unable to locate him.

Aas Mohammad fell into the 15-foot-deep open manhole in Islamnagar area on Tuesday morning and the local authorities after failing to find him called in the Army for rescue operation.

However, the rescue teams were virtually groping in the dark even after a 12-hour long search and they were unable to locate him because of the heavy flow of water in the sewer said to be four-kilometre-long.

An engineering detachment and two medical teams of the Army that had rushed in from Delhi and Meerut, were on the job despite facing early difficulties in getting the sitemap of the drain and water lines from local authorities.      

"We came to the spot around 1230 hours and asked for the sitemap. But the local administration provided us with one at around 1730 hours. Without a sitemap, we were blindly searching the sewer for the boy," an Army official told PTI.

The rescue teams, armed with oxygen masks, earthmoving equipment and powerful halogen lamps, pumped out water from the sewer and have so far searched eight manholes in the vicinity.

As local residents complained that the manhole had been lying uncovered for the last two-three months, the district administration ordered a high-level magisterial inquiry into the matter.

The Army personnel have cordoned off the entire area to prevent the big crowd of curious onlookers from disrupting their operations.

The boy's father Raeez Mohammad, a street vendor, said he had so far not received any assurance from the local administration about his son's safety and accused it of launching the rescue work late.

"We informed the administration about the incident around 0900 hours. The police reached the spot but the municipal workers came only with the Army personnel," he added.

However, Ajay Mohan Sharma, SP (City), said police and municipal workers reached the spot as soon as they received information about the incident and began rescue operations immediately.

"We have the biggest sewer line here and we were unable carry out the rescue operations properly. So, we sought the Army help at around 1100 hours," Sharma added.

Admitting that rescue operations were not carried out properly due to limited resources, Additional District Magistrate (City) S K Singh said the authorities were trying their best to rescue the boy.

Aas works in a barber shop and is the second-eldest among seven children.