A 22-year-old man, Liu Chuanyi, spent three days in a 12-metre-deep well on the Thailand-Myanmar border, after villagers mistook his cries for ghostly wails and avoided the area.

Liu fell while trekking, suffering injuries including a fractured wrist and a concussion. To conserve energy, he shouted for help only hourly but went unnoticed. Eventually, police, alerted to strange sounds, found and rescued him after a 30-minute operation. Authorities plan to question Liu once he recovers in the hospital.•