New setbacks in search for Spanish toddler

The search for a toddler who fell down a Spanish well nine days ago hit a fresh setback Tuesday, complicating a difficult rescue operation which has had the country on tenterhooks. Two-year-old Julen Rosello fell down the narrow shaft on January 13 as he was playing while his parents prepared a picnic in Totalan, a southern town near Malaga. There has been no contact with the toddler since but rescuers think they know where he is inside the 100-metre shaft and have been working round the clock to get there. Although workers had been hoping for a breakthrough in rescue efforts on Tuesday, the operation hit a fresh technical hitch, further delaying the rescue.  "Those who are here risking their lives have faith that he is alive and that we will pull him out alive," Bernardo Molto, spokesman for the Civil Guard police force in Malaga province, told AFP. "If not, they wouldn't be working in these conditions." The unprecedented rescue operation has been fraught with complications. The well is blocked by a layer of earth, sand and stones believed to have been dislodged when the toddler fell into the shaft.  An initial plan to reach him with an angled tunnel was abandoned because of...