Indus Valley Times

UTTARKASHI,NOV 15: Eforts to rescue the 40 workers trapped inside a tunnel in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi district continued on Wednesday.

As the rescue operation entered its fourth day on Wednesday, workers staged a protest at the site of the accident where the relief and rescue operation was underway.

The workers demanded immediate evacuation of their fellow workers and raised slogans, “Hamare aadmi nikalo..” (Take out our men..)

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The auger drilling machine and its platform were dismantled. Rescue officials had spent hours preparing a platform for the auger drilling machine to insert steel pipes through the rubble, but a fresh landslide on Tuesday night forced them to dismantle the machine and start work on the platform again.

The falling debris injured two rescue workers, who were sent to the makeshift hospital established on the site.

Drilling to insert the pipes to create a passage for the labourers began with the help of an ‘auger machine’, Uttarkashi District Magistrate Abhishek Ruhela told reporters earlier, news agency PTI reported.

“If everything goes as planned, the trapped labourers will be evacuated by Wednesday,” he had said after visiting the tunnel and taking an update on the operations from officials at the site.

However, the rescue work was affected when the landslide caused fresh rubble to fall from above, causing a stampede-like situation that left two labourers injured.

NEW DRILL MACHINE, 900 MM PIPE

The platform leveling work is in progress for the installation of a new drilling machine. A platform is being prepared for the machines to work in the horizontal direction for the pipe to be pushed through the debris and evacuate the workers. The 900 mm pipe would be wide enough for the workers to pass through.

The concrete work is also in progress for strengthening of the platform.

On Tuesday, trucks loaded with the pipe and drilling machines reached the tunnel site.

The plan is to push through both 800 and 900 mm diameter sections of mild steel pipes — one after the othe — into the rubble using drilling equipment and create an escape passage for the workers who, officials said earlier, are safe and being provided with oxygen, water, food packets and medicines through tubes.

There are eight 900-millimetre diameter pipes with a length of six metres each and five pipes of 800-millimetre diameter of the same length, the State Emergency Operation Centre said.

At least 40 workers were trapped after a portion of an under construction tunnel between Silkyara and Dandalgaon on the Brahmakhal-Yamunotri national highway collapsed on Sunday morning.

The total length of the tunnel is 4.5 km, with 2,340 metres constructed from Silkyara’s end and 1,750 metres from Dandalgaon’s side. A stretch of 441 metres between the two sides of the tunnel is yet to be constructed.

-PTI