Uttarkashi tunnel: Location for drilling identified to evacuate 41 trapped

Road work for vertical drilling on the hill above the tunnel is almost complete, says Anshu Manish Khulko, Director, NHIDCL

Location has been identified for vertical drilling to bring out 41 workers trapped inside Silkyara Tunnel, 11 days after the underconstruction structure collapsed.

As per the Director of National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDCL), Anshu Manish Khulko, "The location for vertical drilling has been identified. Road work for vertical drilling on the hill above the tunnel is almost complete. More than 350 meters of road construction work is complete. BRO is building a road from both Silkyara and Barkot sides which is almost complete."

Meanwhile, a piling machine that was stuck yesterday due to the road being narrow, has now reached the Silkyara tunnel site.

On Tuesday, rescuers had attempted 'horizontal drilling' and fed trapped workers with solid cooked food simultaneously.

A total of five agencies-- ONGC, SJVNL, RVNL, NHIDCL, and THDCL-- have been assigned specific responsibilities to evacuate the 41 labourers trapped for 10 days in the 2-km-built portion of the under-construction structure following a landslide.

Despite the rescuers achieving a breakthrough on Monday evening by laying a 6-inch-wide pipe, the trapped men were only provided fruits such as bananas, oranges, and medicines today as Khichdi in cylindrical plastic bottles could not pass through the 53-metre-long alternative lifeline.

An Uttarakhand policeman, the first to reach the site of the collapsed Sikyara tunnel, said he had inspected the under-construction tunnel last month and the work was going well.

Posted at Genwala Police Post under Dharasu Police Station in Uttarkashi district, Head Constable Suresh Kumar told PTI that a site engineer called on his mobile phone to inform him about the collapse and he was the first responder from the police department.

"It was around 8 am and I was taking a bath when I got the call. I immediately took a junior staffer with me and reached the spot on my motorbike," said Kumar, a native of Pauri Garhwal, who has been deployed at the Genwala Police Post, about 10 km from Silkyara tunnel, for the last one-and-a-half years.

Labourers trapped in Silkyara tunnel were supplied veg pulao, matar-paneer, and chapatis with butter for dinner Tuesday night through a food pipe stuck through the collapsed part of the structure.

The collapse occurred on November 12 during the construction of a tunnel from Silkyara to Barkot, trapping 41 labourers due to a muck fall in a 60-metre stretch on the Silkyara side of the tunnel.

The NDMA official said that on November 12, the tunnel caved in and that other Barkot side of the tunnel was already closed, as work on that side had not yet started.

The rescue team on Monday evening managed to lay a 6-inch pipe through which solid food and mobile chargers were sent inside the collapsed section of the Silkyara Tunnel.

On Tuesday morning, rescuers managed to insert an endoscopy camera into the tunnel and the first visuals captured showed the 41 workers had ample space inside the tunnel for them to move about.

Visuals of workers trapped inside for the past 10 days emerged on Tuesday morning, has given new hope to worried relatives, some of whom are camping outside the site of the collapsed tunnel structure.