Rescuers in Uttarakhand were drilling through debris yesterday to reach 41 men trapped in a highway tunnel in the Himalayan region after removing a metal obstruction that slowed progress overnight, a top official said.
The men have been stuck in the 4.5km tunnel for 11 days since it caved in on Nov 12. They are safe, authorities have said, with access to light, oxygen, food, water and medicines.
Rescuers had expected to break through early yesterday as only the last third of the debris blocking the tunnel remained to be drilled through, before an evacuation pipe could be pushed in and the men pulled to safety.
But they encountered a steel lattice girder arch after covering 45 metres of the estimated 60-metre stretch of debris, which required about six hours to cut and remove, said the official, Mr Bhaskar Khulbe.
“Our calculation as of now is roughly 14 to 15 hours, unless something else happens, and we hope we will be able to do that,” Mr Khulbe, who works on the tunnel project, said yesterday evening (Singapore time).
“It is difficult to anticipate what more hurdles we might face,” he said, adding that since the structure was not one of very hard rock, no major problem was expected, apart from another metal obstacle or rock.
Once the drilling is completed, officials plan to send rescuers through the evacuation pipe with stretchers on wheels to bring out the trapped men, they said.
Rescuers were hoping for a breakthrough this morning (Singapore time), although the government has also repeatedly warned any timelines were “subject to change due to technical glitches, the challenging Himalayan terrain, and unforeseen emergencies”.
Inside the Silkyara tunnel entrance, an AFP journalist said the site was a flurry of activity.
Worried relatives gathered outside the site, where a Hindu shrine has been erected, with a priest holding prayers for the safe rescue of the trapped men.
“The day they will come out of the tunnel, it will be the biggest, happiest day for us,” said Mr Chanchal Singh Bisht, 35, whose 24-year-old cousin Pushkar Singh Ary is trapped inside.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said the work was on a “war footing”.
Authorities have not said what caused the tunnel collapse, but the region is prone to landslides, earthquakes and floods.
The collapsed tunnel is located on the Char Dham pilgrimage route, one of the most ambitious projects of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
It aims to link four important Hindu pilgrimage sites with 890km of roads being built at a cost of US$1.5 billion.
On Wednesday, the government said the National Highways Authority of India would do a safety audit of 29 tunnels it is building following the collapse.
Reuters, AFP
