This is the moment a boy plunged down a 115ft-deep shaft while looking for scrap metal - sparking an ongoing search in Vietnam.

Thai Ly Hao Nam, 10, was with relatives when he slipped into a hole for the foundations of a concrete pillar at a bridge at a construction site in Dong Thap province in the Mekong delta region on December 31.

Soldiers and engineering experts are now digging through mud and concrete trying to free the youngster. Officers have been pumping oxygen into the pillar to help the boy breathe, but it is unclear whether he is alive.

Firemen said they had lowered a camera down the shaft to determine his location, but he was unresponsive as of Monday.

Two days of rescue efforts using cranes and excavators have so far failed, and hope is dwindling that the youngster is still alive.

Doan Tan Buu, Dong Thap provincial people's committee chairman, said: 'The boy has been trapped inside the small pillar, with assumption of multiple injuries. Hope for him to be alive is limited.

'We had tried our best to rescue the boy using on-the-spot measures and equipment. We later had to ask for help from national levels and people with more expertise.'