Uttarakhand tunnel collapse: Authorities said no to alternate rescue tunnel

In November this year, 41 construction workers were left trapped in the Silkyara-Barkot tunnel after a part of it collapsed. They were rescued after 17 days. However, a report released on Wednesday said that the authorities had ruled out an option of a separate escape tunnel owing to a rise in construction time and cost, and anticipation of lower traffic volume.

According to a report released by The Indian Express (IE) on Wednesday, a plan to construct a separate tunnel, parallel to the original tunnel and connected at suitable intervals, was not given a thumbs up.

Instead, a divider was put in the middle of the tunnel to eliminate the risk of head-on collisions. Experts, in the report, suggested that after the collapse, the divider became immaterial and a parallel tunnel would have helped.

The EIA report said that two tunnels would be more costly as they would require two separate portals and ventilation systems. Moreover, the traffic on the route was less than 2,000 passenger car units, suited for a two-tunnel system.

The IE report also said that the Char Dham project, which the Silkyara-Barkot tunnel is a part of, was broken down into 53 civil works to avail an exemption from environmental clearance. All linear projects under 100 km are exempted from such clearances.

Last week, Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury raised the issue in the Lok Sabha. He said the ordeal of 41 workers could have been averted had the Centre listened to the advice of experts.

During the Zero Hour, Chowdhury said experts had flagged several issues related to the construction of the tunnel in the Himalayas citing fragile rock, water seepage, landslide-prone Himalayan rock system, lack of geological studies and failure to design an escape tunnel.

"I feel that this kind of situation which took place in Uttarkashi could have been averted provided the government had taken a little patience with those geologists who had earlier red-flagged that these kinds of tunnels could be disastrous," Chowdhury said, according to news agency PTI.