Uttarkashi tunnel collapse: Technical issues affect rescue operations

Operations to rescue 40 labourers trapped under a collapsed tunnel's debris here for the last three days have been hampered after a landslide at the site and technical issues in a drilling machine being used to create an escape passage, officials said.

The labourers are safe, and oxygen, electricity, medicines, food items and water are being constantly supplied to them, they said.

Rubble from the landslide fell on the collapsed part of the under-construction Silkyara tunnel on Tuesday night, hampering operations as well as injuring two rescue workers. They are being treated at a makeshift hospital, the officials said.

A new platform is being built inside the tunnel for another drilling machine, which is on the way, an official at the police control room set up near the site, Sanjit Uniyal, said on Wednesday.

Some more equipment is being brought from Delhi by air to aid rescue efforts, according to officials of the state and national disaster response forces. They added that the drilling machine at the site is facing some technical problems.

The Tuesday landslide hampered efforts to insert steel pipes through the tunnel's debris to create the passage.

Talks have been held with the Indian Air Force and soon bigger machines will be sent to the spot from Delhi so that the stranded workers can be taken out of the tunnel at the earliest, Uttarakhand's Director General of Police Ashok Kumar told PTI in Dehradun.

Portions of the under-construction tunnel which is part of the ambitious Chardham All Weather Road project collapsed due to a landslide on Sunday.