The child had ended up stranded deep within the taiga after getting carried away playing with puppies near his home in Russia’s remote Tuva Republic. Tserin has instantly turned into a local celebrity, with fellow villagers praising him for his courage and stamina. A massive search had been launched to find the child, with more than 100 people – including the Russian Emergency Ministry, police, volunteers, neighbors, friends and family members – burning the midnight oil in an attempt to find their little Tserin. A day and night search operation to find the child involved villagers, local policemen and even a helicopter scouring a vast area of about 120 square km. He responded to the call of his uncle!” Ayas Saryglar, head of Tyva’s Civil Defense and Emergencies agency, told the newspaper. It was a dangerous place to stay, though – the local River Mynas is cold and fast, and any who fall into it would stand little chance of surviving. If a small child fell in, it would be certain death," Ayas Saryglar, head of Tyva's Civil Defense and Emergencies agency, told the Siberian Times.  Image copyright Tuva emergency services Image caption The survival of three-year-old Tserin Dopchut has been described as a miracle 
 
 A three-year-old boy survived alone for 72 hours in a forest in the remote Russian region of Siberia, in an area renowned for being inhabited by wolves and bears. The bears are now fattening for the winter. They can attack anything that moves. "In addition, it is warm during the day, but at night there are even frosts. If we consider that the kid disappeared during the day, he was not properly dressed - only a shirt and shoes, no coat.' Another official told local media that the child was saved after recognising his uncle's voice calling his name. “Once in the hands of a loved one, the first thing he asked about was his toy car. To make sure it was not a case of kidnapping, police first raided 63 houses in the village of Khut, home to some 400 people. Rescuers were quick to praise the toddler's initiative - he found a dry place under a larch tree and slept between its roots. "The whole [of his] village is throwing a party to celebrate his survival," regional leader Sholban Kara-Ool was quoted as saying. Mowgli is the fictional orphan in Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book novels, 
 
 "It is now predicted he will become a rescuer himself," the paper said, "because he showed incredible stamina for his age by surviving for so long alone in these cold woods." With night temperatures close to zero and not a living soul in sight, those were possibly the three longest days and nights in Tserin Dopchut’s entire life. Doctors say that Tserin suffered no serious injuries from his ordeal.
– A 3-year-old boy in Siberia has been given the nickname Mowgli after he survived three days in a bear-infested forest as temperatures neared 32 degrees. Tserin Dopchut had been playing with dogs near his home in the village of Khut when he wandered into the forest on Sunday, possibly while chasing a puppy, reports the Guardian. Without a coat and with only a chocolate bar in his pocket, he seemingly vanished in the harsh landscape, home to wolves and bears. After three days of land and air searches, however, Tserin responded to calls from his uncle and was found safe, almost two miles from his village. He showed signs of exhaustion and hypothermia, per RT, but immediately "asked if his toy car was OK," regional leader Sholban Kara-Ool tells the Siberian Times. Tserin—now dubbed Mowgli, referring to the character from the Jungle Book, per the BBC—explained he ate his chocolate and, to try to escape frost at night, "found a dry place under a larch tree and slept there between the roots," Kara-Ool says. An official noted just how potentially perilous an experience the child survived: "The bears are now fattening for the winter. They can attack anything that moves." Kara-Ool says a celebration will be thrown for Tserin. (This boy survived in the wilderness thanks to a tip from his dad.)