Rescuers race to save 1 year old trapped in 15-metre-deep hole in Thailand

Rescuers have been working for over 16 hours to attempt to rescue a one year old girl trapped in a narrow, 15-metre-deep hole in Tak province in northern Thailand.

At 9.30am, rescuers made a breakthrough and managed to reach the toddler. They are now in the process of bringing her up out of the hole.

Yesterday, a Burmese couple left the house to head to work in a cassava field when their daughter, one year and seven months old, fell into a deep hole drilled for groundwater.

The mouth of the hole is only one foot wide and about 15 metres deep.

More than 100 people joined the rescue mission but the young child was still trapped 16 hours later.

A camera was lowered into the hole which pictured the baby crying with mud all over her face. Rescuers also lowered oxygen into the hole so she could breathe.

Rescuers used a backhoe to dig a second parallel hole and were about to connect it to the narrow hole at 6am.

Rescuers say they had to chip away at the rocks slowly to pave a way to the child without her getting hurt.

At 9.30am, rescuers managed to reach the little girl and are now working on bringing her up to the surface safely.